October 31, 2024 • 49 mins
This week Scott is joined by Jodi Wellman. Jodi is an author, executive coach, and expert on resiliency. Scott and Jodi discuss living well with no regrets, and learning to embrace the bright side of your limited time on Earth.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We'll tinker with it. We'll toy with it. We'll do
enough to kind of TII and believe me, like I'll
doodle just to lighten the topic. I'll throw stupid silly
jokes out. I'll keep it a reverend and light because
we all have to laugh at the absurdity of it.
And then we're going to flip the script pretty fast
from what could be dour and morbid, which I mean,
let's be honest, it is it ultimately sucks, and then
(00:21):
move that fast into okay, and so now what do
you feel motivated to do with your time so you
don't end up getting to the end and feeling like
maybe you didn't do a justice or then you have
those depbed regrets, which to me is I think my
biggest fear, I mean, other than spiders.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Today we have Jody Wellman on the show. Jody is
an author, executive coach, and an expert on resiliency. In
this episode, we discuss her very interesting book, You Only
Die Once How to Make It to the End with
No Regrets. The title of the book basically sums up
what we discussed in this episode. I really hope this
episode inspires you to make the most of what you
have and live your life fully and meaningfully. I really
(01:04):
endure Jody, and I'm so glad I finally got her
on the show. So I now bring you Jody Wellman.
Jody Wellman, Welcome to the Psychology podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Go Up, very combid. I'm overly thrilled to be here
with you.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, I'm thrilled to have you here. And finally I
talked to you, and congratulations on your new book called
You Only Die Once, Very clever. How to make it
to the end with no regrets? Wow? You know there's
research showing that people's last name correlates with their profession.
So like shoemakers tend to be more likely to make shoes,
(01:41):
people with the word well and their last name tend
to be more likely to become psychologists or coaches. I
don't know, did you always feel like a calling to
help with wellness?
Speaker 1 (01:54):
What a good question?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
And do you also like men? And trying to figure
out the well men part.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Of the combo? I just go rightful that I did
not fall for a guy whose last name was Sickmund,
because that would have been probably not good for my career.
Jody Sickmann. But I like how do you know that
obscure research only you would.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Know that that's true. It's true? Maybe maybe, Yeah, So
I am generally interested to have you always been interested
in well in death maybe like or wellness? Like what's
the theme that runs through your life?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Well, I would say wellness was the theme that was
obvious on the outside, because I felt like that was
less weird to show. So I spent the first seventeen
years of my career in the health and wellness field,
like running health clubs, and that was the whole other career,
and then getting into leadership development and coaching, so that's
all about, and then positive psychology well being raw, but
(02:47):
the undercurrent was always this little topic of mortality where
I was like, I'm fascinated by and all you want
to do is read about and talk about and then
scream it from the mountains, this idea about we're totally
going to die, we should get on with living. But
I that was like not as easy to talk about
until I hope I found a way to do it
(03:08):
and not turn everybody off. So it's it was always
like the duality between well being, let's live like we
mean it, and then also, yeah, because it's going to end.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
What do you do with people who can't wait to die?
Like I thought, let's just dive ray into the deep end.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
We don't have time to I feel like that. Yeah,
there's so many people who have your attitude, but we're
about those who are like, yeah, I've had enough of
this shit.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
I love I can overly positive acceptance towards that. Well,
you know, they don't come out of the woodwork too
much in my world, like for example, on Instagram, where
everybody's just so lovely and happy every now and then
you get that attitude like I put. I put a
question I once, like what age do you want to die?
I realized I was totally fishing for the crazies, and
most people were honest, like, oh, I think eighty would
(03:55):
be a good lie? Or when I The most common
answer was like up until I can no longer after myself.
Only at the end did stuff emerge where there were
people that are like, yesterday, yeah, couldn't I be gone?
And so fortunately I'm not like in any kind of
therapeutic space around that, and so it's just to me,
it's sad.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Interesting, like even day benefit from reading your book, Oh.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
What a good question. My hope would be yes. Cool,
because the point of it isn't so much about death
death death, it's death death and then live in all cats,
right and.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Keep living, helping people live more fully. Right. Yeah. Now
you have a Master's of Applied Positive Psychology from Penn
That's where I first met you, and you were an
insistant instructor or you still are. You are right now
an insistant instructor in the master's program and you're a
trainer in the World Around Resilience program. Amazing. So yeah,
(04:53):
so you have a lot of expertise and resilience and
wellness thriving coaching. Your certified coach with twenty five years
of corporate leadership experience. So like when you coach people,
is this idea of carpi DM or memento mori? Yeah,
(05:15):
an important central concept in your coaching good cue?
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Well, the answer is yes with an asterix, right, So
that would be my agenda. And if I was, I mean,
I guess as you teach in like your coaching programs,
like if I'm coming at it with them, let me
tell you here's the curriculum. It would be probably like
the worst shittiest coach in the world. However, while I
don't do a lot of one on one anymore, it's
(05:40):
not mostly in groups. And when I was doing it
one on one, you know, I think maybe I'm attracted
to clients and then they would find me because of
this spirit of I want to get on with it.
I'm scared. I want more out of my life, but
I'm not really sure how, or I get a sense
like am I squandering my time? So sometimes those were
the questions and qualities that would maybe attract people into
(06:01):
knowing what I did, and then I'd be like, well,
then let's dive in and go there, rather than them
talking about some other topic and me being like, let's
talk about the fact that you're temporary. Like I wouldn't
spring it on them, you know what I mean, but
absolutely thematically, well like we cannot go there.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, I mean. The existential humanist psychologist arv and y'all
and certainly wrote a lot about this. Did you read
Staring into the Sun.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Like just soaked it in?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yeah, it's one of my favorite books. And he wouldn't
he I mean, he has a whole therapy around it,
So why not having a whole coaching around it?
Speaker 1 (06:34):
I think that's very as long as they know they're
signing up for it.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
That's why are we always talking about the groom Reaper
in our sessions. I mean, I love it. I love
the idea of it.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Well, so what is memento Maury old Latin phrase?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Remember we must die? Doesn't it just stir the cockles
of your heart?
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Hmm? Yeah? Yeah, I mean I think that at various
points in our lives we have different realizations of that.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah. Yeah, And what I notice is that most of
us intentionally don't I guess now that you say that, right, Like.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, we often keep it away from our consciousness.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Right, And I don't blame us for doing that. We
want to be safe. We want to be have a
good day, not a totally freaking morbid day. But you know,
I think because you've studied this and you've actually.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Been some people want to freaking morbid day. I just
had a whole episode on the science of morbid curiosity.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Love it, love him some people love that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I totally get it.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
But I know what you mean.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Yeah, for the gen pop, you know, we're kind of like,
how do I just like like scrape by today and
have it be okay. And that's the thing that I
find the most kind of sizzily is that okay, yeah,
we want to live with more intention and meaning and
feel good about our lives. And funny enough, it's exactly
by doing the thing you don't think you want to do, Like,
(08:00):
let's scratch the surface and maybe go deeper on the
fact that you're a ticking time bomb.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
And that's interesting. Yeah, I just try to interrupt you.
You're taking time bomb? Well, I mean it's it's just like,
can you enjoy something knowing it's going to come to
an end? And then there's some deep philosophical questions there
that no one's ever fully answered. But yeah, like would
you enjoy something if you thought, if you knew, it
would never end? Can you?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
My answer is a very aggressive belief in no, so
can I ask first what do you think? And you
can lead the witness here, but what do you think?
Speaker 2 (08:38):
No? I think that having an ending is what gives
something a meaning. Yeah, we're seeing from the.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Same sound book. Yeah, yeah, the well that songbook, same operatic.
This is like the best part of my day. I
love it. That is the tune of.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
We don't think we need it? That is it.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
That's the theme song. That the fact that we're a
finite and when we pay attention to it. So you know,
temporal scarcity is like the psychology science way of putting
it that any resource that is temporary, we value it more, Okay,
And we can apply that scarcity heuristic to our lives.
And it's only when for most of us, we pay
(09:24):
attention to the fact that in my world, I count
how many Mondays I have left, so I've got one
and ten as of this week. And if I didn't
do that math, I'm like my freaking day job, and
I need to do that math, remind myself every Monday
and get recentered and go oh yeah, because I'm taking
it for granted.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
That's assuming that you'll live to what age.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
That gets me to eighty three as a woman average age? Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
It doesn't seem like a lot when you put it
that way, right, Why do you propose that we count
our Mondays? Why not our Fridays?
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Great question? Okay, if we had, like when we had
four thousand Fridays, it all just sounds easy and fun,
and I want life to be great and easy and fun.
But it doesn't let us reflect enough, because this is
slam dunk and Monday, though in comparison, allows us to
do this visceral like how do I feel about my
(10:15):
week ahead? Am I dreading going and doing the thing
I'm supposed to be doing if I'm still working or whatnot?
And so it's just this way of looking at does
another week of your life excite you, allure you, depress
you insert adjective here.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah, no, it's fair enough. And some people have put
these posters on their wall that show and yeah I
know that Tim Urban, yeah has one.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yeah, I got one off his weight, but whyside And
it's funny. I gave those to a big business group
I was leading years ago as the coach for the
holiday season. I rolled them all up and put little
scrolls on them and gave them out and strangely nobody
was interested. It was like, thanks for the turnoff.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Oh oh yeah. So people consider this kind of talk
kind of a down or a little bit there. Yeah. So,
I mean in a lot of ways, your your whole
message is like, this is not a downer.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
I mean, by the way, this is we're going to
release this episode on Halloween. Can we do that? Mike,
I don't know. I'm just saying that out on but.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
We can try, can.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
We try try? But yeah, it might not happen, but
it feels like a very health So a big point
here is that your message is not a downer right right,
like like we need to think about life differently, we
need to say to think about death differently.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Yes, yes, thank you for grabbing onto that, because we'll
tinker with it. We'll toy with it. We'll do enough
to kind of tii and believe me, like I'll doodle
just to lighten the topic. I'll throw stupid silly jokes out.
I'll keep it a reverend and light because we all
have to laugh at the absurdity of it. And then
we're going to flip the script pretty fast from what
could be dour and morbid, which I mean, let's be honest,
(11:58):
it is like it ultimately so, and then move that
fast into okay, and so, now, what do you feel
motivated to do with your time so that you don't
end up getting to the end and feeling like maybe
you didn't do a justice or then you have those
deathbed regrets, which to me is I think my biggest fear.
I mean, other than spiders.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Oh I don't like spiders. Yes, that the whole deathbed
regret thing. What are the things that people regret the
most on their deathbed?
Speaker 1 (12:26):
The biggest thing, statistically would be two categories. First and foremost.
The way my brain works, I think you'll stills too.
We've got regrets, regrets of regrets of omission and comission,
just like our good old fashioned sins. And so we
(12:48):
think that we are going to be plagued by the
regrets about the stupid decisions we made, the things we
did and wish we hadn't. Turns out that stuff we
tend to find a way to rationalize, which thank god,
it's good. So those too, let's just set them aside
because they don't really matter. And now let's focus on
the regrets of omission, which are those paths not taken,
like the dreams we had for ourselves that we wondered about,
(13:10):
like what if I'd gone to that school, or what
if I'd applied for that big job, or what if
I had asked her out or whatever? The thing is
that you kind of wonder and we always I could
have been happy if we'd moved to Phoenix, or I
don't know, whatever the thing is you're wondering about the
thing that you're curious and the thing that you didn't
take action on, I called them could have, should have
would us? And so then they further burrow down, and
(13:32):
you know, Dan Pink's work and the American Regret Project
studies talk about how, you know, many of us will
regret things around relational issues, like connection regrets like I
wished I'd hadn't lost touch with so and so, I
wish I'd kept my relationships up. So that's a big category.
And then there would be like foundational regrets like I
(13:53):
wished I'd done the work. I wished I'd gone and
spent more time in school, or like gotten you know,
a better footing in my job or whatnot, and goals
like I wished I had gone for the marathon that
I wanted to do, or started my Etsy business and
like making pillows or whatever the thing is that you
deign to do.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
So really, the unrealization of one's highest potential. Yeah, is
that it like self actualization?
Speaker 1 (14:21):
I think it is. And it's like as our friend
or Elm says, like the unlived life and that those
words just like every time I say them, or write them.
They grit me in the right way of like imagine
having that sense of an unlived life, like we're not
going to reach all of our I'm curious what you
think about this, because like, well, I have an opinion
(14:41):
about bucket list two, and I want to hear yours.
But like a list of dreams, a list of notions
and things that would be cool to do during our
four thousand mondays. Yay, we know we're not going to
get to do every single thing because well, time is
just not going to allow for it. But the things
that matter, like back to the deathbed, regret exercise, if
you can accurately pinpoint and go holy crap, Like if
(15:03):
tonight was the night and I was just like I
was minutes away from perishing, what would I be actually
kicking myself that I didn't take action on what would
that be? And so now I have two questions for you.
One can I get like what would be? Is there
anything that you would think I always wanted to do
this thing, whether it's a big thing or a tiny
(15:24):
little thing or a way of being.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
It's a delightful question and it's a really good thought experiment.
My mind tends to always work counter to what normal
people would respond.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
To things, and so therefore I love your anticipated answer.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I just feel like, if I knew that this was it,
I would want to just crawl up in my bed
and read a good book. Like I just don't. I
think I'd want to maximize my pleasure for the next.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, twelve hours, yeah or whatnot. Yeah, I'm just.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Like mentally prepare for this right, well, part.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Of the exerras. I love your answer, by the way, because.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Really, oh my gosh, because I feel like everyone else
would be like I'd start that nonprofit, you know what
I mean, Like I think that's in the normal answer
that people give, or or I tell the girl I
like her, you know, it's just like calm down, Like
I'd rather just meditate for the for the two hours.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Yeah, well, introverts unite, because I would also be like,
how could I get the cozy'st blanket? Yeah, and get
corozy and just like and.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Well, maybe still go up with someone though maybe you can't.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Yeah, No, I believe there's room for others. So the exercise, though,
is intended. I think if us we're not on our
deathbed and we're not doing the exercise because I like
the other thought experiment of like if you knew, I
think that if you had a year to live is
still kind of bullshit because it's not an accurate way
(16:50):
to really look at and go what do I want
to do with my life? But that's why I like
to pick an obscure number, like sixteen years from today
you're done, because now at least we're kind of sizing
a little more.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Yeah, but if.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
You did imagine if you were gone tonight, what would
you regret? I call them p regrets, So I know
it's a w key name, but it's this idea about
these are regrets in the making, that we're not dead yet,
so we still have a chance to get out there.
And if you would think, oh man, I always wanted
to learn how to speak Spanish, well go download the
app thing. Or if you wanted to go and you know,
(17:23):
start like reading to kids at the library, go do that.
Like there's still time. That's the good news. It's like,
you don't have to wait anymore. Why are we waiting?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yeah? Do you wake up in the morning and uh
be like I'm alive? Oh my cow, I'm alive today?
Is that is that you? Like?
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Every day it is, although I hope I don't sound
like a Disney character when I say that, but I
do wake up. I do wake up generally quite ecstatic
that I.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Am like, oh shit, I had to do this shit again.
I'm joking. I'm joking. That's the contrary making that joke. Yeah, yeah,
I've gld you appreciate it and you take it the
right way. So look, you talk about living a squander
a free life. What does that mean?
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Oh? I love talking about squanderliciousness or not. And I
feel the need to put an asterix on it too,
because when I talk about this sort of mission to
live a squander free life, I think people then go
to the extreme and say, okay, if it's the anti
squander life, it means I'm out booking all the trips,
I'm at all the restaurants, I'm doing all the things,
all the things that looking on social media, and I'm
(18:33):
already exhausted even justn't like naming four of them. And no, no, no,
you know that's why I talk about living and astonishingly
a live life. It's relative to what you want, right.
It could involve the glass of wine in a book yay,
Or it could involve going out and going to a
gala or going on a yacht trip or whatever. And
so squandering is when we know that we kind of
(18:58):
want to be doing more, but we're either playing it
small if that matters to us, or that we are
like literally wasting our time so that we find that
all of a sudden, it's like, how did it get
to be the end of September? And I have no
idea what happened because all my days were just these
monotonous blurs merging into each other. So it's the idea
of squandering without being intentional and concrete and saying, hey,
(19:19):
you know it will be cool. How would I feel
alive this weekend? Oh that's one thing I could do.
I could browse through that bookstore, or I could go
and have brunch with a friend, or whatever the thing
is you choose to do. So it's plugging into life
rather than letting it kind of carry us down that stream,
because you know, we could just answer our emails and
live a life of doing that and then but we
(19:41):
haven't really lived. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (19:44):
It? Does it? Does? I like your way of being?
And what was your master's thesis about this topic? Right?
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Called Memento Mooring. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah, And how is it received by your colleagues at.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Matt Yeah, it was received well. In fact, it was
through some of the faculty there that I believe that
the encouragement was to go for it, Like I was
a little bit fearful as a pleaser, like I don't
want to buck the system of positive psychology. But as
we know, positive psychology embraces all of it, the light,
(20:18):
the dark, the everything. Right, it's about being resilient in
making the whole of life that is temporary. And so
fortunately the idea is like, yeah, go explore the idea
of death. There's a really warm, friendly place for it
in positive psychology and humanistic psychology and existential psychology. I mean,
we all play together nicely.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Right we do?
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Whose we we in the world of psychology.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Sometimes yeah, no, but for sure yeah, no, wonderful. I
mean I have such a unique thesis related a little
bit to David Yaiden's master's thesis, but he did at Penn,
which was on the good Death.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
I didn't even know.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah we should have him, now stop it your funny.
Yours is very unique and different, but it just relates
and maybe we can get you a copy of David's
just pisis But no, it's it's a very you are
very sweet gen there is you know, you're very unique,
you know, uh, and you know like you I don't
(21:22):
know if I said it right, I don't know. I
want the kind you want to the kind Thank you
Laden for one of a kind.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
There is a lot of research on languishing and even
your phrases and your phrasing, I mean you have a
unique spin. You're Jody Wellman. Like when I think of
Jody Wellman, I think of something very unique within the
space of psychology. So you talk about how to undebt
our lives, but isn't that really just how do we
(21:50):
get out of the languishing state into a state of flourishing?
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yes, And mister improv I think, yeah, the answer is yes.
And the mechanism is one that is one that I
sometimes lament but obviously have embraced. So it's that it's yes,
And we need the nudge, We need the grim Reaper
(22:17):
to like take his site and just like kind of
like gently like tap you like, the way to get
out of languishing whatever, we determine the way to get
down to get out of squanderland or whatever it is
that we're doing. Is that I have found and I'll
confirmation bias the crap out of finding the research that
I need in order to bolster the fact that you know, yes,
(22:40):
we need the negative in order to sometimes we need
that motivational nudge. But like most of us are not
that motivated or have that much self initiative to like
go make our lives full of flourishment, and so we
have to actually go like, yeah, I've only got this
many hours left in your way of boarding it, or
I've only got need one hundred and ten left, and
(23:02):
so that is the unfortunate but I think necessary nudge
in order to get out of language land.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Amazing. Ryan Holiday talks about this too. Yeah, he wears
his Memento Mari medallion all the time on his Instagram posts.
You know what I'm talking about, I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So there are others talking about this as well, which
must feel good to kind of not feel like the
soul traveler along this message. Stoics a lot about this.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Absolutely, Yeah, I've been inspired.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
By yes exactly, he thinks he did. I mean, you know,
I'm joking, joking.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Trama stoic coin boom. I love it. Yes, And there
have been so many really great thinkers, whether they're philosophers
or psychologists from the days of old, you know, a
lot of your kind of like role models in the day, Yeah, poets,
I mean literature, Like there's so many things in the
(24:00):
humanities that are we've been fascinated by the fact that
we're going to die for as long as we've been alive,
and like it's high time to continue to use that
to our datage rather than have it be something that
we want to avoid because most people, you know, would
rather head for the hills.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Yeah, but it's like the hills are coming, you know,
like you can there's nowhere to run. Those hills will
kill you is coming. This is dark.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
This is dark where you go. But some people are
trying like that Jeff Bezo, the big article came out
that he's trying to live forever. He's trying to put
all his billions of dollars into thing forever. Yeah, I
have a you saw that.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Yeah, And same thing with Brian Johnson, like you know,
ye Brian Johnson's pajillions.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
And drinking vampire blood.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yes, I mean whatever gets you through the night pal
and back to your original original question about like do
you want to live forever?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Like that?
Speaker 1 (25:03):
It does sound a bit to me like torture. It
does sound like torture because it's this idea that would
we ever really make anything happen? Or that to me
actually feels like a recipe for just a squanderous existence,
because it's that would I do I really want to
go and study that thing in school? You know what,
I'll do it in like thirteen thousand more years. Or
(25:25):
do I want to go and initiate this relationship with somebody? Yeah,
you know what, I'll catch them the next time around,
in like thirty eight thousand years. There's no real impetus,
Like do you feel about the power of a deadline too?
Speaker 2 (25:36):
I do? Oh deaf. I work best under deadlines. I'll
probably get most of my work done on my deathbed.
I'll get my best work done. Yeah, opus, I'm good.
I'm good with deadlines. Why are habits dangerous? No one
says that. You know you're not going to get like
what's his name on the show? You know one of
(25:56):
these habit guys are all guys do big friends? They're
all guys.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
I do.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
It's like, okay, yeah, I wasn't thinking to do. I
was thinking of Clear. I was thinking of James Clear.
You know, yeah, probably death, probably always thinking about the
next goal exactly. Do you know what I'm saying? I do?
Speaker 1 (26:14):
I do. Yeah, I have bones to pick, very you know,
very polite bones to pick. But I would say, habits,
I believe are the recipe for vitality disaster. It's a
bold statement, Rightah, just came up with it. But I
think that when we succumb to habits and routines, just
(26:37):
like related, that's when we go through the motions of life.
And even those words about going through the motions like okay,
sometimes that's relieving. Like I'm not a complete idiot. I
recognize that sometimes we need to tune out and not
be ever present and ever savoring every moment that we're
brushing our teeth, like life is complicated, so let's take
your chill pill. Like sometimes that's when a routine will
(26:59):
just help pass a fiaus and just get through Oh
look at you. However, if we want to be happy,
what I do believe is that we need to abandon
some of those routines where we become we know this
we become.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
We need to be. We need to integrate. Both of
these integrate. Some people are too happy, they need to chill.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
They need to Okay. Well, according to.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Are you happy, you shut the bug up?
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Next the voice you gave me right morning, wake up,
I'm gonna I'm gonna have to recalibrate that voice.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
That's my general it's your general happy happy. Yeah, I
know for anyone who's above zero.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Right, they need to calm down. Well, the robotanizing how
we become these highly functioning zombies. Yes, we want to function,
but most of us could agree that at the end
of a week or a month, or maybe even it's
a whole freaking year where we're like, I think I
just again got sweat up in the current of life,
(28:01):
Like yeah, do I feel like not not. I'm gonna
be careful in saying do I have anything to show
for it? Because that also sounds like it's extrinsic, like
I have to show you on Instagram all the things
I did this weekend. No, but it's about breaking up
your routine sometimes in a in the way that works
for you to feel more alive. Like then all this
is in service of finding more aliveness. So what it
(28:22):
might mean is if you know, vital vitality, if you
have the same route you take to work, or the
same exact workout, or the same exact date night, or
whatever it is, because we we just go. We we
click into these patterns just to be convenient. It's the
way we're wired, most of us. What about just shaking
it up, you know, throw a wrench in it, not
(28:43):
in a way that's going to make you feel anxious.
Do you think it's symbolic that our flame is out?
Do you think we've just that it's it's dead. I
think that you rig this, you purposely chose.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
I've never seen that happen before.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
This is perfect happen before.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yeah, I think that candles.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
I think I think it's amazing, it's good. I think
it's actually like this is practicing appropriate, you know. Yeah,
So be careful of routines. They'll they'll rob you of aliveness.
The next thing you know, you're in your grave.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Well, because you you admitted all these little language like
we have dead zones in our lives, Like you really
like this theme theme of death?
Speaker 1 (29:21):
I've a little far.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
No, but it's creative. I'm into it. Okay, I'm into it.
I'm super into weird shit. I love that stuff. Yep.
So yeah, like you you know, I love it. You
call it you know, like you say you need to
diagnose the dead zones in your life?
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, And this I realized to a positive
psychology practitioner for coach is like, yeah, okay, we there's
a time and a place to identify things in your
life that are currently working. Yeah, obviously do more of
those things, like you know, amplify what's good.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Also, I do think it's helpful to really have that
sort of diagnosis about like where have I flatlined in
my life? And you know how we have all these
domains in life, right, so like there's your career, there's
your social life, there is your like personal growth area,
fun and recreation, romance, you know, you name it right
when you are able to kind of look at each
(30:17):
section and diagnose and go, you know, things are generally
okay over here that's fine, or like that's that's kind
of I'm okay to not address that one right now,
But whoa this one? Like maybe it's recreation. I like
it's it's dead on a rival, Like I really need
to work on this area. That's the helpful part about
self awareness is like really zeroing in because you can
(30:39):
have a general sense of back to languishing or just
the general sense of with life where you don't like
I don't know something's missing, or I think I want
something more, or is this all there is? Or all
the other existential winners, and so sometimes you just have
to laser in and be like, oh, if it's recreation, well,
then what's the thing you could do, like pick up
a hobby again? What that look like if you try
(31:00):
that this weekend?
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Is it okay to just be in moods? It's okay
to have moods of dead, Like you always have to
feel pressure to like be happy, Like what if you
have a day where you're like, I'm dead today? Yeah,
can you ever just allow yourself to just do it?
Speaker 1 (31:20):
I think so. I think it's like the human condition.
In fact, I think it's so beautiful about appreciating what
the good days because they're contrasted to the bad days.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
You don't have to be astonishingly alive every day, right, No.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
I feel also that that just a tire. It is exhausting,
it's tiring. It's also unsustainable. Even if you kind of
think you get there.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
So when I talk about like the opposite quadrant and
what the work I do of the dead zone, you
know it is being astonishingly alive. Yeah, And I think
that it's a really big frickin sandbox, like big area
where you could be any quadrant right, Like you could
be at the top right edge of it, maxing it out. Okay,
well hold on for that ride. Good on you. But
(32:07):
like for most of us, we're just going to kind
of land over here, and sometimes we're going to dance
around the others and like, welcome it all, right, yes.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yeah, welcome it all. And yeah, I'm very Buddhist about that,
for sure. I'm more Buddhist than stoic. I think I
am too, but I do see some benefits to soicism
for sure. Can we get a zoom in on your tattoo? Oh,
say an hour glass?
Speaker 1 (32:35):
It's this skull. I don't know how this is going
to happen. I could walk up to a camera if
you'd like. Okay. Melissa Nuniez, she's designed my logo four
thousand mondays with the sun setting, and so she did
this one as well. And I got this the week
that I recorded the audio book for my book, because
I founded to forever commemorate it on my skin and
remind myself you're gonna die.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Wow, it's amazing that do you have that reminder on
your body. I'm so interested in all this amazing coaching
work you do. I've got interest in coaching recently. You know,
you say that some of your most motivated clients are
those that have had a near death experience. And I'm
(33:21):
really interested in the science or near death experiences because
Abraham Maslow talks about what's the phrase to use, the
second delfe or something like that, Yeah, post mortem life.
He calls it the post mortem life.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Yeah, I would have learned maybe through your book in
Transcend or somewhere else about his heart attack. And he
has a quote that I'd be a better person if
I had memorized. But just that it's riveting, right, this
idea of like this river of my life will never
be the same. It's so beautiful now and acknowledging like
my life is just not the same now. How could
(33:56):
I see like almost how exquisite it is without seeing
death and experiencing the almostness of it. Very broadly paraphrasing
mister Maslow's. So I am also fascinated and I have
envy for people who have had a brush with death,
because like, this is the thing I take most serious,
and I am the idea that you can have even
(34:20):
more of a sense of that awakening like that, I
know who is it. I don't think it was yelling,
but someone else has said the roar of awakening. I
just love that phrase. I love the notion of it.
And so then I just think, Okay, well, what's the
next best thing other than remember that movie Flatliners from
the eighties. We're dating ourselves here, But other than trying
to rig death and then.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Come back remember that, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
A safer way to do it. I guess it's just
to research things they know to be true and maybe
try and live from that. And I've just found it fascinating.
Like I know, recent guests here on your show was
a maket based on fear of other people's opinions, and
that to me is one of the best gifts ever
that I try to learn about vicariously from people who've
(35:06):
had a brush with death, because once they've kind of come.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
Back from being like we have no fucks to give
exactly like, yeah, I must have had.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
A near death experience that I didn't know about, because
I have zero focks to give.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Well, hang on, this is like a newish thing, because.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Yeah, how did you get there? Used to be a
people pleaser?
Speaker 1 (35:25):
What happened?
Speaker 2 (35:27):
I maybe I had something I don't know about.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Well, we need to do some sort of testing. We
need to find out, because I.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Think just age I got to in my forties and
I'm like, come on, I can't waste my time like.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
This, right, Why do I care anymore?
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Saying yes to that thing or yeah, answering that.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
You well, why why should I be? Why should I
care about what people think of me? Who I don't
even like? That's what I'm saying, well said, you know, yep.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
I tell the story in my book about this woman
Shay and Palm Springs, and she runs a nonprofit for
cancer survivors of breast cancer. And she was going through
twenty two weeks in a row of her chemotherapy, and
she had a blank journal and she drew a circle
and that I have affectionately, of course now called SHA's circle.
And she said she was really intentional. She's like, I'm
(36:23):
going to come out of this thing, and my life's
going to be so much better in the following ways.
And she wrote about the things she wanted in her
life inside the circle, and that included people and ways
of being and I don't know, activities and then maybe
more poignantly and like interestingly, she had a crap ton
of stuff outside the circle, like people that were kind
(36:44):
of toxic, like I don't think I need to make
time for you, you know, I may be related to
you or whatnot. Or for her it was being a pleaser,
which is why I remember this. She's like, I don't
need to say yes to your committee. I don't need
to be obliged to do that thing. I've seen the
break of death and she doesn't talk like this, but
but I now know I don't have to do this
(37:04):
because I'm going to live this special, precious life. She
called it getting a second chance.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Oh wow, like how right?
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Like the let's all pretend that we've been given the
postwartum life in a fresh second chance today to be
like if I just got out of the hospital, and
this is the exercise I do with myself regularly. If
I was in a coma and I came out of
the hospital and I came home. What's the stuff that
I would really prioritize and what's the stuff that I
would just be like, Oh, it just doesn't matter anymore,
(37:32):
including maybe other people's opinions, or including tasks, or including
the toiling things. We don't really we're wasting our time
on I'd want to go pursue some dreams, you know.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I mean this is an inspiring conversation.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
It's a grim Reaper can do for us, not a.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Down Yeah yeah, I mean no, it's what Jodi Wellman,
are you the grim Reaper? I hope not pr hope.
I don't know how I feel about that. I hope
I have many years to go. Uh can you just
confirm that that is true? Oh no, oh my godd,
I'm too neurotic for that to say. Yes.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Oh, we're arranging extra Mondays for you as a result
of this conversation.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
I get extra credit.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Oh you've scored at least two Mondays.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Which is many Mondays from now right?
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Oh yeah?
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah. What What's I'm like, what
are we believing that you were part of the groom?
Like I wouldn't like cut it past you what's okay,
what's a really realistic way for people with busy lives
to incorporate these ideas into their lives? I mean, what
can they do? I mean people are going crazy these
(38:43):
days with the work.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Yeah, I'm glad you asked it, because I love the idea. Okay,
So I'll go like in two directions. One is just
going to be always, always, always my my real kind
of raw raw for just like start counting your mondays,
like like, let that be the baseline of your momentumry practice.
You don't have to get tattoos, you don't have to
just count your mondays and keep the countdown timer poof. Okay, good,
that's done. Okay, Now this idea about living and astonishing
(39:08):
the live life without it breaking the bank or like
the time that you are already time starved you don't
have enough time, and or maybe even very frankly the
inclination I love so much that the life worth living
for most of us is this deliberate sprinkling in and
then the accumulation of stuff that is just usually sweet
(39:31):
and simple, and it's often like free, which I mean
that works, free is affordable. So I love this exercise
that I'll do with groups or people where it's like,
write out thirty things that make you happy, that bring
you joy, however you want to define it. We could
split hairs over joy fulfillment meaning whatever, but just what
lights you up, what makes you feel alive, and even
(39:52):
the teeniest, tiniest way, and they need to be attainable.
Things you can't just say like, well, when I'm on
a cruise in the Mediterranean, like that a little bit extreme.
Don't not do that. But for most people, the things
that they will write down are things that are so
extraordinarily accessible in our days that we just don't make
time for. Right. So a woman I met this morning,
(40:17):
she was like, I'm going to get my daughter from
her school today. I'm going to take her to the
playground and she goes. I don't know why, but I
always have this idea like I wanted to be the
kind of mom that brought a book to the playground,
and I'm doing that today for the first time ever.
Because she just goes and sits, and she's like, I
guess I'm a good mom. Might sometimes watch my kid,
which I guess is important, but she's like, I have
to scroll or whatever. I'm just sort of sitting aimlessly.
(40:40):
She's bringing a book, and that for her is just
going to be this again, free again. She's already at
the park with her kid. Why not immerse yourself? And
in her instance, it's just going to be this fiction
book where she's going to read part of a chapter
and that's just going to make that twenty minute increment
of her life that much better than if she had
just maybe zoned out, and maybe zoning out for some
of us back just squandering is like that's the thing
(41:01):
you might need in that moment. But what about those
special things where it's like taking the dog for a walk,
or being conscious and like sitting outside and having your coffee,
or like, can I be nosy? Like what are some little, tiny,
little sweet things that you just you can't explain it,
You don't have to explain it, but it just brings
you little bits of joy.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
There are there are pretty they are pretty small things.
It doesn't take much to bring me joy. In fact,
the big things overwhelm me. But no, like definitely drinking
good coffee, like definitely, like on a rainy thunders day,
thunderous Is that a word? Thunderful? Thunderful? Do you know what,
(41:42):
I'm just saying, delicious day a day where there's a
lot of thunder and rain, like I love just snuggling
up in my bed and reading a good psychological novel.
Like little things like that I feel like make my
life worth living. Was I supposed to say something grandiose?
Speaker 1 (41:59):
That is perfect answer, and it's also still a little contingent.
The weather needs to be thundry, but maybe it's seizing
it when that comes right. It's like knowing the things
that make you feel alive. And that's another thing.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
You know.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
I'll ask groups like what is what what makes you
feel most alive? And that that can be an intimidating question.
So sometimes it's just what are some of the the
top few things?
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Oh, I don't know if those things I mentioned to
make me feel most alive? I feel like that's a
different question. He is a different question.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
You're right, yeah, this is now like person, But now
can I ask, like, what is something that No matter what.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
The most alive thing is a little bit different. So
when I give a keynote talk, I feel very alive.
You know. I have like maybe three thousand people in
a room like listening to me, and I'm able to
express my passion for my life's purpose to and get
instant feedback. There's something so live feeling, a live feeling
(42:54):
about that I make up words, you know, I do
like verbal ju jitsu, you know, because my brain's not
functioning properly. But yeah, do that makes sense? The kind
of livens Oh totally our teaching class.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Yeah yeah, well you're mentors.
Speaker 4 (43:10):
Yeah, I go on, So like these are your like
a live spots and I'm already making an assumption that
your life is already fortunately you know, sprinkled.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
With a lot of those moments where you get to
feel alive. But maybe there's an aha, Like for me,
it's also speaking, and so it's like, well, how do
we rig our lives? Quite frankly, like we're all into
hacks or whatever, like okay, this is a freaking game,
Like how do we just make it so it's just
that much better and a live while we're here? So
for me, it's like, okay, more talking on the stage,
and for you, maybe maybe I'm going to put words
(43:43):
in your mouth, but just by wave example, it could
be like I need to make sure I'm consciously mentoring
three students or people in this period of time rather
than just one because I love it so much, Like
why am I not doing more of it? It's tuning
into that stuff to say what makes you alive? And
how often are you doing it? Because you know it's sad.
And this is the part that I think is just
(44:07):
partly the way we get swept up in the current
of life is that many people, when I ask this question,
they'll identify something that they just haven't done in a while.
You know, it's often creative pursuits. I know you're super creative,
Like people will talk about, oh, it's like when I'm painting,
or you appreciate this one even more. I did a
(44:28):
workshop last year where a guy was like, was this
the whole team? And he's like, the number one thing?
Of course he was willing to answer. He goes doing
improv and the group was like, oh, wow, really been
and I'm like, what, wow, great, when was the last
time you did it? And just let this answer do
the thing It did for me too. He said, Oh
(44:50):
it's my ten years and I just I feel overwhelmed
with this idea, like we have life stuffed inside us.
True and the fact that it's been a decade since
this guy's done a thing that makes him feel most alive,
you know what a travesty And that, to me is
an example of not wanting to get to the end
(45:10):
with all these kohl woodus, which is how my mom died.
That I saw in this notion of we still have
time to do the improve or to go in glass blow.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Well, in that case, can you just tell tell your
friend the Grim Reaper to just chill? Can you give
this to the grim Reaper for me knowing?
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Because if he chilled, it would make a problem worse.
And you know this, You know this more than most
of us because if all your research in the areas
you're so, you know, multidisciplined like you. You know, if
if Grim Reaper was like I'm taking a break, I'm
on a sabbatical, we would not do the thing right.
We would not We would not live it up, you
(45:49):
know what we would do what we would continue to
take it for granted. Wow, we would squander that that
therein lies. I think the problem, right is that we
live a life that, like it was Nietzsche, like manage
the only animal who has to be encouraged to live,
(46:10):
and we have dreams and hopes, and I think many
of us are just quite frankly scared to press the
go button.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Yes, I and yes, And I think what do I think?
I hate the idea that like, you're squandering your life
if you're not always fully alive. I think that the
purpose of life is to experience it. And I think
(46:38):
that you know, kind of being. I think people could
be too hard of themselves that if they're not at
every moment like serving a greater purpose, yes, they're squandering
their life. And I guess it's a little bit of
a pet peeve of mine. How do you reconcize we're.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
So spot on together?
Speaker 2 (46:57):
Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
This is back to that relativity of what astonishingly live
means to each person. And I look at it like
in the two quadrants, right, So two axes that make
quadrants like living wider with vitality, so more of a
hedonic kind of alignment to well being, and then deeper
with meaning. We're of the eu demonic and we're going
to have some people, you know, could really care less
(47:23):
about the deeper meaningful stuff. And it's all like rock
on party and vice versa. Could be more important to
some people where they're like I just want to volunteer
at the church, and I don't really care about going
out or whatever. The thing is so based on each
person's knees. I think that where all this nets out,
I believe is are you experiencing your life to the
(47:43):
degree to which you feel good about it versus the
nichelin because I think we all have that in our knowing.
I know I do because as a kind of homebody introvert,
like my default is going to be back under that
blanket on the couch, right, and I have to be
the one to remind myself to live very regularly, and
I actually get prescriptive about it, knowing, okay, I need
(48:04):
to be you know, social in this dose each month,
do a new thing this time, this much each month,
go to a restaurant this much each month. And that
to me is like I'll always recalibrate it. But I
think that in between all that is an example of
like all sorts of rest, which I don't call languishing.
I call that like I love my life in those moments,
(48:24):
and I also know I love it when I also
incorporate a little bit more. So, I think each one
of us needs to do that honest work and say,
do you have the niggling that, Oh you know what,
I don't think I'm really participating in my life as
much as I know I would thrive if I was
doing more of I.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
Just got an idea. Yeah, yeah, for an article. Ow
all right, Oh what's about? I'll tell you as soon
that right, Okay, here we go. Here's the title. Okay,
don't confuse languishing for rest. No one someone's are in
that yet it needs to be written, do you? You
(49:01):
bring up so many good points, and your book is wonderful,
and I just want to congratulate you on it because look,
I know how much the book means to you. I
know how much work you've put into it. I've seen
that firsthand. And I know how passionate you are about
these ideas. And I have nothing but positive like I'm
rooting for you energy. So I just want to end
(49:22):
the interview by saying that I'm definitely rooting for you
to live your best life.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
Oh, thank you rooting for me with my wake up
in the morning Disney voice energy.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Yes, boy, I love it. Maybe more people could use
that voice in their head.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
We actually need that, like the Elmo button or whatever
the thing you in the morning, just to press that
is maybe the alarm to wake up to. But thank
you for your kind words.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
Thank you for being on my show.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
I appreciate it. Time will spend
We'll tinker with it. We'll toy with it. We'll do
enough to kind of TII and believe me, like I'll
doodle just to lighten the topic. I'll throw stupid silly
jokes out. I'll keep it a reverend and light because
we all have to laugh at the absurdity of it.
And then we're going to flip the script pretty fast
from what could be dour and morbid, which I mean,
let's be honest, it is it ultimately sucks, and then
(00:21):
move that fast into okay, and so now what do
you feel motivated to do with your time so you
don't end up getting to the end and feeling like
maybe you didn't do a justice or then you have
those depbed regrets, which to me is I think my
biggest fear, I mean, other than spiders.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Today we have Jody Wellman on the show. Jody is
an author, executive coach, and an expert on resiliency. In
this episode, we discuss her very interesting book, You Only
Die Once How to Make It to the End with
No Regrets. The title of the book basically sums up
what we discussed in this episode. I really hope this
episode inspires you to make the most of what you
have and live your life fully and meaningfully. I really
(01:04):
endure Jody, and I'm so glad I finally got her
on the show. So I now bring you Jody Wellman.
Jody Wellman, Welcome to the Psychology podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Go Up, very combid. I'm overly thrilled to be here
with you.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, I'm thrilled to have you here. And finally I
talked to you, and congratulations on your new book called
You Only Die Once, Very clever. How to make it
to the end with no regrets? Wow? You know there's
research showing that people's last name correlates with their profession.
So like shoemakers tend to be more likely to make shoes,
(01:41):
people with the word well and their last name tend
to be more likely to become psychologists or coaches. I
don't know, did you always feel like a calling to
help with wellness?
Speaker 1 (01:54):
What a good question?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
And do you also like men? And trying to figure
out the well men part.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Of the combo? I just go rightful that I did
not fall for a guy whose last name was Sickmund,
because that would have been probably not good for my career.
Jody Sickmann. But I like how do you know that
obscure research only you would.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Know that that's true. It's true? Maybe maybe, Yeah, So
I am generally interested to have you always been interested
in well in death maybe like or wellness? Like what's
the theme that runs through your life?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Well, I would say wellness was the theme that was
obvious on the outside, because I felt like that was
less weird to show. So I spent the first seventeen
years of my career in the health and wellness field,
like running health clubs, and that was the whole other career,
and then getting into leadership development and coaching, so that's
all about, and then positive psychology well being raw, but
(02:47):
the undercurrent was always this little topic of mortality where
I was like, I'm fascinated by and all you want
to do is read about and talk about and then
scream it from the mountains, this idea about we're totally
going to die, we should get on with living. But
I that was like not as easy to talk about
until I hope I found a way to do it
(03:08):
and not turn everybody off. So it's it was always
like the duality between well being, let's live like we
mean it, and then also, yeah, because it's going to end.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
What do you do with people who can't wait to die?
Like I thought, let's just dive ray into the deep end.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
We don't have time to I feel like that. Yeah,
there's so many people who have your attitude, but we're
about those who are like, yeah, I've had enough of
this shit.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
I love I can overly positive acceptance towards that. Well,
you know, they don't come out of the woodwork too
much in my world, like for example, on Instagram, where
everybody's just so lovely and happy every now and then
you get that attitude like I put. I put a
question I once, like what age do you want to die?
I realized I was totally fishing for the crazies, and
most people were honest, like, oh, I think eighty would
(03:55):
be a good lie? Or when I The most common
answer was like up until I can no longer after myself.
Only at the end did stuff emerge where there were
people that are like, yesterday, yeah, couldn't I be gone?
And so fortunately I'm not like in any kind of
therapeutic space around that, and so it's just to me,
it's sad.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Interesting, like even day benefit from reading your book, Oh.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
What a good question. My hope would be yes. Cool,
because the point of it isn't so much about death
death death, it's death death and then live in all cats,
right and.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Keep living, helping people live more fully. Right. Yeah. Now
you have a Master's of Applied Positive Psychology from Penn
That's where I first met you, and you were an
insistant instructor or you still are. You are right now
an insistant instructor in the master's program and you're a
trainer in the World Around Resilience program. Amazing. So yeah,
(04:53):
so you have a lot of expertise and resilience and
wellness thriving coaching. Your certified coach with twenty five years
of corporate leadership experience. So like when you coach people,
is this idea of carpi DM or memento mori? Yeah,
(05:15):
an important central concept in your coaching good cue?
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Well, the answer is yes with an asterix, right, So
that would be my agenda. And if I was, I mean,
I guess as you teach in like your coaching programs,
like if I'm coming at it with them, let me
tell you here's the curriculum. It would be probably like
the worst shittiest coach in the world. However, while I
don't do a lot of one on one anymore, it's
(05:40):
not mostly in groups. And when I was doing it
one on one, you know, I think maybe I'm attracted
to clients and then they would find me because of
this spirit of I want to get on with it.
I'm scared. I want more out of my life, but
I'm not really sure how, or I get a sense
like am I squandering my time? So sometimes those were
the questions and qualities that would maybe attract people into
(06:01):
knowing what I did, and then I'd be like, well,
then let's dive in and go there, rather than them
talking about some other topic and me being like, let's
talk about the fact that you're temporary. Like I wouldn't
spring it on them, you know what I mean, but
absolutely thematically, well like we cannot go there.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, I mean. The existential humanist psychologist arv and y'all
and certainly wrote a lot about this. Did you read
Staring into the Sun.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Like just soaked it in?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yeah, it's one of my favorite books. And he wouldn't
he I mean, he has a whole therapy around it,
So why not having a whole coaching around it?
Speaker 1 (06:34):
I think that's very as long as they know they're
signing up for it.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
That's why are we always talking about the groom Reaper
in our sessions. I mean, I love it. I love
the idea of it.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Well, so what is memento Maury old Latin phrase?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Remember we must die? Doesn't it just stir the cockles
of your heart?
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Hmm? Yeah? Yeah, I mean I think that at various
points in our lives we have different realizations of that.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah. Yeah, And what I notice is that most of
us intentionally don't I guess now that you say that, right, Like.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, we often keep it away from our consciousness.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Right, And I don't blame us for doing that. We
want to be safe. We want to be have a
good day, not a totally freaking morbid day. But you know,
I think because you've studied this and you've actually.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Been some people want to freaking morbid day. I just
had a whole episode on the science of morbid curiosity.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Love it, love him some people love that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I totally get it.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
But I know what you mean.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Yeah, for the gen pop, you know, we're kind of like,
how do I just like like scrape by today and
have it be okay. And that's the thing that I
find the most kind of sizzily is that okay, yeah,
we want to live with more intention and meaning and
feel good about our lives. And funny enough, it's exactly
by doing the thing you don't think you want to do, Like,
(08:00):
let's scratch the surface and maybe go deeper on the
fact that you're a ticking time bomb.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
And that's interesting. Yeah, I just try to interrupt you.
You're taking time bomb? Well, I mean it's it's just like,
can you enjoy something knowing it's going to come to
an end? And then there's some deep philosophical questions there
that no one's ever fully answered. But yeah, like would
you enjoy something if you thought, if you knew, it
would never end? Can you?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
My answer is a very aggressive belief in no, so
can I ask first what do you think? And you
can lead the witness here, but what do you think?
Speaker 2 (08:38):
No? I think that having an ending is what gives
something a meaning. Yeah, we're seeing from the.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Same sound book. Yeah, yeah, the well that songbook, same operatic.
This is like the best part of my day. I
love it. That is the tune of.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
We don't think we need it? That is it.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
That's the theme song. That the fact that we're a
finite and when we pay attention to it. So you know,
temporal scarcity is like the psychology science way of putting
it that any resource that is temporary, we value it more, Okay,
And we can apply that scarcity heuristic to our lives.
And it's only when for most of us, we pay
(09:24):
attention to the fact that in my world, I count
how many Mondays I have left, so I've got one
and ten as of this week. And if I didn't
do that math, I'm like my freaking day job, and
I need to do that math, remind myself every Monday
and get recentered and go oh yeah, because I'm taking
it for granted.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
That's assuming that you'll live to what age.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
That gets me to eighty three as a woman average age? Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
It doesn't seem like a lot when you put it
that way, right, Why do you propose that we count
our Mondays? Why not our Fridays?
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Great question? Okay, if we had, like when we had
four thousand Fridays, it all just sounds easy and fun,
and I want life to be great and easy and fun.
But it doesn't let us reflect enough, because this is
slam dunk and Monday, though in comparison, allows us to
do this visceral like how do I feel about my
(10:15):
week ahead? Am I dreading going and doing the thing
I'm supposed to be doing if I'm still working or whatnot?
And so it's just this way of looking at does
another week of your life excite you, allure you, depress
you insert adjective here.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah, no, it's fair enough. And some people have put
these posters on their wall that show and yeah I
know that Tim Urban, yeah has one.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yeah, I got one off his weight, but whyside And
it's funny. I gave those to a big business group
I was leading years ago as the coach for the
holiday season. I rolled them all up and put little
scrolls on them and gave them out and strangely nobody
was interested. It was like, thanks for the turnoff.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Oh oh yeah. So people consider this kind of talk
kind of a down or a little bit there. Yeah. So,
I mean in a lot of ways, your your whole
message is like, this is not a downer.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
I mean, by the way, this is we're going to
release this episode on Halloween. Can we do that? Mike,
I don't know. I'm just saying that out on but.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
We can try, can.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
We try try? But yeah, it might not happen, but
it feels like a very health So a big point
here is that your message is not a downer right right,
like like we need to think about life differently, we
need to say to think about death differently.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Yes, yes, thank you for grabbing onto that, because we'll
tinker with it. We'll toy with it. We'll do enough
to kind of tii and believe me, like I'll doodle
just to lighten the topic. I'll throw stupid silly jokes out.
I'll keep it a reverend and light because we all
have to laugh at the absurdity of it. And then
we're going to flip the script pretty fast from what
could be dour and morbid, which I mean, let's be honest,
(11:58):
it is like it ultimately so, and then move that
fast into okay, and so, now, what do you feel
motivated to do with your time so that you don't
end up getting to the end and feeling like maybe
you didn't do a justice or then you have those
deathbed regrets, which to me is I think my biggest fear.
I mean, other than spiders.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Oh I don't like spiders. Yes, that the whole deathbed
regret thing. What are the things that people regret the
most on their deathbed?
Speaker 1 (12:26):
The biggest thing, statistically would be two categories. First and foremost.
The way my brain works, I think you'll stills too.
We've got regrets, regrets of regrets of omission and comission,
just like our good old fashioned sins. And so we
(12:48):
think that we are going to be plagued by the
regrets about the stupid decisions we made, the things we
did and wish we hadn't. Turns out that stuff we
tend to find a way to rationalize, which thank god,
it's good. So those too, let's just set them aside
because they don't really matter. And now let's focus on
the regrets of omission, which are those paths not taken,
like the dreams we had for ourselves that we wondered about,
(13:10):
like what if I'd gone to that school, or what
if I'd applied for that big job, or what if
I had asked her out or whatever? The thing is
that you kind of wonder and we always I could
have been happy if we'd moved to Phoenix, or I
don't know, whatever the thing is you're wondering about the
thing that you're curious and the thing that you didn't
take action on, I called them could have, should have
would us? And so then they further burrow down, and
(13:32):
you know, Dan Pink's work and the American Regret Project
studies talk about how, you know, many of us will
regret things around relational issues, like connection regrets like I
wished I'd hadn't lost touch with so and so, I
wish I'd kept my relationships up. So that's a big category.
And then there would be like foundational regrets like I
(13:53):
wished I'd done the work. I wished I'd gone and
spent more time in school, or like gotten you know,
a better footing in my job or whatnot, and goals
like I wished I had gone for the marathon that
I wanted to do, or started my Etsy business and
like making pillows or whatever the thing is that you
deign to do.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
So really, the unrealization of one's highest potential. Yeah, is
that it like self actualization?
Speaker 1 (14:21):
I think it is. And it's like as our friend
or Elm says, like the unlived life and that those
words just like every time I say them, or write them.
They grit me in the right way of like imagine
having that sense of an unlived life, like we're not
going to reach all of our I'm curious what you
think about this, because like, well, I have an opinion
(14:41):
about bucket list two, and I want to hear yours.
But like a list of dreams, a list of notions
and things that would be cool to do during our
four thousand mondays. Yay, we know we're not going to
get to do every single thing because well, time is
just not going to allow for it. But the things
that matter, like back to the deathbed, regret exercise, if
you can accurately pinpoint and go holy crap, Like if
(15:03):
tonight was the night and I was just like I
was minutes away from perishing, what would I be actually
kicking myself that I didn't take action on what would
that be? And so now I have two questions for you.
One can I get like what would be? Is there
anything that you would think I always wanted to do
this thing, whether it's a big thing or a tiny
(15:24):
little thing or a way of being.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
It's a delightful question and it's a really good thought experiment.
My mind tends to always work counter to what normal
people would respond.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
To things, and so therefore I love your anticipated answer.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I just feel like, if I knew that this was it,
I would want to just crawl up in my bed
and read a good book. Like I just don't. I
think I'd want to maximize my pleasure for the next.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, twelve hours, yeah or whatnot. Yeah, I'm just.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Like mentally prepare for this right, well, part.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Of the exerras. I love your answer, by the way, because.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Really, oh my gosh, because I feel like everyone else
would be like I'd start that nonprofit, you know what
I mean, Like I think that's in the normal answer
that people give, or or I tell the girl I
like her, you know, it's just like calm down, Like
I'd rather just meditate for the for the two hours.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Yeah, well, introverts unite, because I would also be like,
how could I get the cozy'st blanket? Yeah, and get
corozy and just like and.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Well, maybe still go up with someone though maybe you can't.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Yeah, No, I believe there's room for others. So the exercise, though,
is intended. I think if us we're not on our
deathbed and we're not doing the exercise because I like
the other thought experiment of like if you knew, I
think that if you had a year to live is
still kind of bullshit because it's not an accurate way
(16:50):
to really look at and go what do I want
to do with my life? But that's why I like
to pick an obscure number, like sixteen years from today
you're done, because now at least we're kind of sizing
a little more.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Yeah, but if.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
You did imagine if you were gone tonight, what would
you regret? I call them p regrets, So I know
it's a w key name, but it's this idea about
these are regrets in the making, that we're not dead yet,
so we still have a chance to get out there.
And if you would think, oh man, I always wanted
to learn how to speak Spanish, well go download the
app thing. Or if you wanted to go and you know,
(17:23):
start like reading to kids at the library, go do that.
Like there's still time. That's the good news. It's like,
you don't have to wait anymore. Why are we waiting?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yeah? Do you wake up in the morning and uh
be like I'm alive? Oh my cow, I'm alive today?
Is that is that you? Like?
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Every day it is, although I hope I don't sound
like a Disney character when I say that, but I
do wake up. I do wake up generally quite ecstatic
that I.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Am like, oh shit, I had to do this shit again.
I'm joking. I'm joking. That's the contrary making that joke. Yeah, yeah,
I've gld you appreciate it and you take it the
right way. So look, you talk about living a squander
a free life. What does that mean?
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Oh? I love talking about squanderliciousness or not. And I
feel the need to put an asterix on it too,
because when I talk about this sort of mission to
live a squander free life, I think people then go
to the extreme and say, okay, if it's the anti
squander life, it means I'm out booking all the trips,
I'm at all the restaurants, I'm doing all the things,
all the things that looking on social media, and I'm
(18:33):
already exhausted even justn't like naming four of them. And no, no, no,
you know that's why I talk about living and astonishingly
a live life. It's relative to what you want, right.
It could involve the glass of wine in a book yay,
Or it could involve going out and going to a
gala or going on a yacht trip or whatever. And
so squandering is when we know that we kind of
(18:58):
want to be doing more, but we're either playing it
small if that matters to us, or that we are
like literally wasting our time so that we find that
all of a sudden, it's like, how did it get
to be the end of September? And I have no
idea what happened because all my days were just these
monotonous blurs merging into each other. So it's the idea
of squandering without being intentional and concrete and saying, hey,
(19:19):
you know it will be cool. How would I feel
alive this weekend? Oh that's one thing I could do.
I could browse through that bookstore, or I could go
and have brunch with a friend, or whatever the thing
is you choose to do. So it's plugging into life
rather than letting it kind of carry us down that stream,
because you know, we could just answer our emails and
live a life of doing that and then but we
(19:41):
haven't really lived. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (19:44):
It? Does it? Does? I like your way of being?
And what was your master's thesis about this topic? Right?
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Called Memento Mooring. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah, And how is it received by your colleagues at.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Matt Yeah, it was received well. In fact, it was
through some of the faculty there that I believe that
the encouragement was to go for it, Like I was
a little bit fearful as a pleaser, like I don't
want to buck the system of positive psychology. But as
we know, positive psychology embraces all of it, the light,
(20:18):
the dark, the everything. Right, it's about being resilient in
making the whole of life that is temporary. And so
fortunately the idea is like, yeah, go explore the idea
of death. There's a really warm, friendly place for it
in positive psychology and humanistic psychology and existential psychology. I mean,
we all play together nicely.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Right we do?
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Whose we we in the world of psychology.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Sometimes yeah, no, but for sure yeah, no, wonderful. I
mean I have such a unique thesis related a little
bit to David Yaiden's master's thesis, but he did at Penn,
which was on the good Death.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
I didn't even know.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah we should have him, now stop it your funny.
Yours is very unique and different, but it just relates
and maybe we can get you a copy of David's
just pisis But no, it's it's a very you are
very sweet gen there is you know, you're very unique,
you know, uh, and you know like you I don't
(21:22):
know if I said it right, I don't know. I
want the kind you want to the kind Thank you
Laden for one of a kind.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
There is a lot of research on languishing and even
your phrases and your phrasing, I mean you have a
unique spin. You're Jody Wellman. Like when I think of
Jody Wellman, I think of something very unique within the
space of psychology. So you talk about how to undebt
our lives, but isn't that really just how do we
(21:50):
get out of the languishing state into a state of flourishing?
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yes, And mister improv I think, yeah, the answer is yes.
And the mechanism is one that is one that I
sometimes lament but obviously have embraced. So it's that it's yes,
And we need the nudge, We need the grim Reaper
(22:17):
to like take his site and just like kind of
like gently like tap you like, the way to get
out of languishing whatever, we determine the way to get
down to get out of squanderland or whatever it is
that we're doing. Is that I have found and I'll
confirmation bias the crap out of finding the research that
I need in order to bolster the fact that you know, yes,
(22:40):
we need the negative in order to sometimes we need
that motivational nudge. But like most of us are not
that motivated or have that much self initiative to like
go make our lives full of flourishment, and so we
have to actually go like, yeah, I've only got this
many hours left in your way of boarding it, or
I've only got need one hundred and ten left, and
(23:02):
so that is the unfortunate but I think necessary nudge
in order to get out of language land.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Amazing. Ryan Holiday talks about this too. Yeah, he wears
his Memento Mari medallion all the time on his Instagram posts.
You know what I'm talking about, I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So there are others talking about this as well, which
must feel good to kind of not feel like the
soul traveler along this message. Stoics a lot about this.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Absolutely, Yeah, I've been inspired.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
By yes exactly, he thinks he did. I mean, you know,
I'm joking, joking.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Trama stoic coin boom. I love it. Yes, And there
have been so many really great thinkers, whether they're philosophers
or psychologists from the days of old, you know, a
lot of your kind of like role models in the day, Yeah, poets,
I mean literature, Like there's so many things in the
(24:00):
humanities that are we've been fascinated by the fact that
we're going to die for as long as we've been alive,
and like it's high time to continue to use that
to our datage rather than have it be something that
we want to avoid because most people, you know, would
rather head for the hills.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Yeah, but it's like the hills are coming, you know,
like you can there's nowhere to run. Those hills will
kill you is coming. This is dark.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
This is dark where you go. But some people are
trying like that Jeff Bezo, the big article came out
that he's trying to live forever. He's trying to put
all his billions of dollars into thing forever. Yeah, I
have a you saw that.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Yeah, And same thing with Brian Johnson, like you know,
ye Brian Johnson's pajillions.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
And drinking vampire blood.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yes, I mean whatever gets you through the night pal
and back to your original original question about like do
you want to live forever?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Like that?
Speaker 1 (25:03):
It does sound a bit to me like torture. It
does sound like torture because it's this idea that would
we ever really make anything happen? Or that to me
actually feels like a recipe for just a squanderous existence,
because it's that would I do I really want to
go and study that thing in school? You know what,
I'll do it in like thirteen thousand more years. Or
(25:25):
do I want to go and initiate this relationship with somebody? Yeah,
you know what, I'll catch them the next time around,
in like thirty eight thousand years. There's no real impetus,
Like do you feel about the power of a deadline too?
Speaker 2 (25:36):
I do? Oh deaf. I work best under deadlines. I'll
probably get most of my work done on my deathbed.
I'll get my best work done. Yeah, opus, I'm good.
I'm good with deadlines. Why are habits dangerous? No one
says that. You know you're not going to get like
what's his name on the show? You know one of
(25:56):
these habit guys are all guys do big friends? They're
all guys.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
I do.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
It's like, okay, yeah, I wasn't thinking to do. I
was thinking of Clear. I was thinking of James Clear.
You know, yeah, probably death, probably always thinking about the
next goal exactly. Do you know what I'm saying? I do?
Speaker 1 (26:14):
I do. Yeah, I have bones to pick, very you know,
very polite bones to pick. But I would say, habits,
I believe are the recipe for vitality disaster. It's a
bold statement, Rightah, just came up with it. But I
think that when we succumb to habits and routines, just
(26:37):
like related, that's when we go through the motions of life.
And even those words about going through the motions like okay,
sometimes that's relieving. Like I'm not a complete idiot. I
recognize that sometimes we need to tune out and not
be ever present and ever savoring every moment that we're
brushing our teeth, like life is complicated, so let's take
your chill pill. Like sometimes that's when a routine will
(26:59):
just help pass a fiaus and just get through Oh
look at you. However, if we want to be happy,
what I do believe is that we need to abandon
some of those routines where we become we know this
we become.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
We need to be. We need to integrate. Both of
these integrate. Some people are too happy, they need to chill.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
They need to Okay. Well, according to.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Are you happy, you shut the bug up?
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Next the voice you gave me right morning, wake up,
I'm gonna I'm gonna have to recalibrate that voice.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
That's my general it's your general happy happy. Yeah, I
know for anyone who's above zero.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Right, they need to calm down. Well, the robotanizing how
we become these highly functioning zombies. Yes, we want to function,
but most of us could agree that at the end
of a week or a month, or maybe even it's
a whole freaking year where we're like, I think I
just again got sweat up in the current of life,
(28:01):
Like yeah, do I feel like not not. I'm gonna
be careful in saying do I have anything to show
for it? Because that also sounds like it's extrinsic, like
I have to show you on Instagram all the things
I did this weekend. No, but it's about breaking up
your routine sometimes in a in the way that works
for you to feel more alive. Like then all this
is in service of finding more aliveness. So what it
(28:22):
might mean is if you know, vital vitality, if you
have the same route you take to work, or the
same exact workout, or the same exact date night, or
whatever it is, because we we just go. We we
click into these patterns just to be convenient. It's the
way we're wired, most of us. What about just shaking
it up, you know, throw a wrench in it, not
(28:43):
in a way that's going to make you feel anxious.
Do you think it's symbolic that our flame is out?
Do you think we've just that it's it's dead. I
think that you rig this, you purposely chose.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
I've never seen that happen before.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
This is perfect happen before.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yeah, I think that candles.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
I think I think it's amazing, it's good. I think
it's actually like this is practicing appropriate, you know. Yeah,
So be careful of routines. They'll they'll rob you of aliveness.
The next thing you know, you're in your grave.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Well, because you you admitted all these little language like
we have dead zones in our lives, Like you really
like this theme theme of death?
Speaker 1 (29:21):
I've a little far.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
No, but it's creative. I'm into it. Okay, I'm into it.
I'm super into weird shit. I love that stuff. Yep.
So yeah, like you you know, I love it. You
call it you know, like you say you need to
diagnose the dead zones in your life?
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, And this I realized to a positive
psychology practitioner for coach is like, yeah, okay, we there's
a time and a place to identify things in your
life that are currently working. Yeah, obviously do more of
those things, like you know, amplify what's good.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Also, I do think it's helpful to really have that
sort of diagnosis about like where have I flatlined in
my life? And you know how we have all these
domains in life, right, so like there's your career, there's
your social life, there is your like personal growth area,
fun and recreation, romance, you know, you name it right
when you are able to kind of look at each
(30:17):
section and diagnose and go, you know, things are generally
okay over here that's fine, or like that's that's kind
of I'm okay to not address that one right now,
But whoa this one? Like maybe it's recreation. I like
it's it's dead on a rival, Like I really need
to work on this area. That's the helpful part about
self awareness is like really zeroing in because you can
(30:39):
have a general sense of back to languishing or just
the general sense of with life where you don't like
I don't know something's missing, or I think I want
something more, or is this all there is? Or all
the other existential winners, and so sometimes you just have
to laser in and be like, oh, if it's recreation, well,
then what's the thing you could do, like pick up
a hobby again? What that look like if you try
(31:00):
that this weekend?
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Is it okay to just be in moods? It's okay
to have moods of dead, Like you always have to
feel pressure to like be happy, Like what if you
have a day where you're like, I'm dead today? Yeah,
can you ever just allow yourself to just do it?
Speaker 1 (31:20):
I think so. I think it's like the human condition.
In fact, I think it's so beautiful about appreciating what
the good days because they're contrasted to the bad days.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
You don't have to be astonishingly alive every day, right, No.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
I feel also that that just a tire. It is exhausting,
it's tiring. It's also unsustainable. Even if you kind of
think you get there.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
So when I talk about like the opposite quadrant and
what the work I do of the dead zone, you
know it is being astonishingly alive. Yeah, And I think
that it's a really big frickin sandbox, like big area
where you could be any quadrant right, Like you could
be at the top right edge of it, maxing it out. Okay,
well hold on for that ride. Good on you. But
(32:07):
like for most of us, we're just going to kind
of land over here, and sometimes we're going to dance
around the others and like, welcome it all, right, yes.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yeah, welcome it all. And yeah, I'm very Buddhist about that,
for sure. I'm more Buddhist than stoic. I think I
am too, but I do see some benefits to soicism
for sure. Can we get a zoom in on your tattoo? Oh,
say an hour glass?
Speaker 1 (32:35):
It's this skull. I don't know how this is going
to happen. I could walk up to a camera if
you'd like. Okay. Melissa Nuniez, she's designed my logo four
thousand mondays with the sun setting, and so she did
this one as well. And I got this the week
that I recorded the audio book for my book, because
I founded to forever commemorate it on my skin and
remind myself you're gonna die.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Wow, it's amazing that do you have that reminder on
your body. I'm so interested in all this amazing coaching
work you do. I've got interest in coaching recently. You know,
you say that some of your most motivated clients are
those that have had a near death experience. And I'm
(33:21):
really interested in the science or near death experiences because
Abraham Maslow talks about what's the phrase to use, the
second delfe or something like that, Yeah, post mortem life.
He calls it the post mortem life.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Yeah, I would have learned maybe through your book in
Transcend or somewhere else about his heart attack. And he
has a quote that I'd be a better person if
I had memorized. But just that it's riveting, right, this
idea of like this river of my life will never
be the same. It's so beautiful now and acknowledging like
my life is just not the same now. How could
(33:56):
I see like almost how exquisite it is without seeing
death and experiencing the almostness of it. Very broadly paraphrasing
mister Maslow's. So I am also fascinated and I have
envy for people who have had a brush with death,
because like, this is the thing I take most serious,
and I am the idea that you can have even
(34:20):
more of a sense of that awakening like that, I
know who is it. I don't think it was yelling,
but someone else has said the roar of awakening. I
just love that phrase. I love the notion of it.
And so then I just think, Okay, well, what's the
next best thing other than remember that movie Flatliners from
the eighties. We're dating ourselves here, But other than trying
to rig death and then.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Come back remember that, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
A safer way to do it. I guess it's just
to research things they know to be true and maybe
try and live from that. And I've just found it fascinating.
Like I know, recent guests here on your show was
a maket based on fear of other people's opinions, and
that to me is one of the best gifts ever
that I try to learn about vicariously from people who've
(35:06):
had a brush with death, because once they've kind of come.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
Back from being like we have no fucks to give
exactly like, yeah, I must have had.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
A near death experience that I didn't know about, because
I have zero focks to give.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Well, hang on, this is like a newish thing, because.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Yeah, how did you get there? Used to be a
people pleaser?
Speaker 1 (35:25):
What happened?
Speaker 2 (35:27):
I maybe I had something I don't know about.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Well, we need to do some sort of testing. We
need to find out, because I.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Think just age I got to in my forties and
I'm like, come on, I can't waste my time like.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
This, right, Why do I care anymore?
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Saying yes to that thing or yeah, answering that.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
You well, why why should I be? Why should I
care about what people think of me? Who I don't
even like? That's what I'm saying, well said, you know, yep.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
I tell the story in my book about this woman
Shay and Palm Springs, and she runs a nonprofit for
cancer survivors of breast cancer. And she was going through
twenty two weeks in a row of her chemotherapy, and
she had a blank journal and she drew a circle
and that I have affectionately, of course now called SHA's circle.
And she said she was really intentional. She's like, I'm
(36:23):
going to come out of this thing, and my life's
going to be so much better in the following ways.
And she wrote about the things she wanted in her
life inside the circle, and that included people and ways
of being and I don't know, activities and then maybe
more poignantly and like interestingly, she had a crap ton
of stuff outside the circle, like people that were kind
(36:44):
of toxic, like I don't think I need to make
time for you, you know, I may be related to
you or whatnot. Or for her it was being a pleaser,
which is why I remember this. She's like, I don't
need to say yes to your committee. I don't need
to be obliged to do that thing. I've seen the
break of death and she doesn't talk like this, but
but I now know I don't have to do this
(37:04):
because I'm going to live this special, precious life. She
called it getting a second chance.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Oh wow, like how right?
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Like the let's all pretend that we've been given the
postwartum life in a fresh second chance today to be
like if I just got out of the hospital, and
this is the exercise I do with myself regularly. If
I was in a coma and I came out of
the hospital and I came home. What's the stuff that
I would really prioritize and what's the stuff that I
would just be like, Oh, it just doesn't matter anymore,
(37:32):
including maybe other people's opinions, or including tasks, or including
the toiling things. We don't really we're wasting our time
on I'd want to go pursue some dreams, you know.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I mean this is an inspiring conversation.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
It's a grim Reaper can do for us, not a.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Down Yeah yeah, I mean no, it's what Jodi Wellman,
are you the grim Reaper? I hope not pr hope.
I don't know how I feel about that. I hope
I have many years to go. Uh can you just
confirm that that is true? Oh no, oh my godd,
I'm too neurotic for that to say. Yes.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Oh, we're arranging extra Mondays for you as a result
of this conversation.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
I get extra credit.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Oh you've scored at least two Mondays.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Which is many Mondays from now right?
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Oh yeah?
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah. What What's I'm like, what
are we believing that you were part of the groom?
Like I wouldn't like cut it past you what's okay,
what's a really realistic way for people with busy lives
to incorporate these ideas into their lives? I mean, what
can they do? I mean people are going crazy these
(38:43):
days with the work.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Yeah, I'm glad you asked it, because I love the idea. Okay,
So I'll go like in two directions. One is just
going to be always, always, always my my real kind
of raw raw for just like start counting your mondays,
like like, let that be the baseline of your momentumry practice.
You don't have to get tattoos, you don't have to
just count your mondays and keep the countdown timer poof. Okay, good,
that's done. Okay, Now this idea about living and astonishing
(39:08):
the live life without it breaking the bank or like
the time that you are already time starved you don't
have enough time, and or maybe even very frankly the
inclination I love so much that the life worth living
for most of us is this deliberate sprinkling in and
then the accumulation of stuff that is just usually sweet
(39:31):
and simple, and it's often like free, which I mean
that works, free is affordable. So I love this exercise
that I'll do with groups or people where it's like,
write out thirty things that make you happy, that bring
you joy, however you want to define it. We could
split hairs over joy fulfillment meaning whatever, but just what
lights you up, what makes you feel alive, and even
(39:52):
the teeniest, tiniest way, and they need to be attainable.
Things you can't just say like, well, when I'm on
a cruise in the Mediterranean, like that a little bit extreme.
Don't not do that. But for most people, the things
that they will write down are things that are so
extraordinarily accessible in our days that we just don't make
time for. Right. So a woman I met this morning,
(40:17):
she was like, I'm going to get my daughter from
her school today. I'm going to take her to the
playground and she goes. I don't know why, but I
always have this idea like I wanted to be the
kind of mom that brought a book to the playground,
and I'm doing that today for the first time ever.
Because she just goes and sits, and she's like, I
guess I'm a good mom. Might sometimes watch my kid,
which I guess is important, but she's like, I have
to scroll or whatever. I'm just sort of sitting aimlessly.
(40:40):
She's bringing a book, and that for her is just
going to be this again, free again. She's already at
the park with her kid. Why not immerse yourself? And
in her instance, it's just going to be this fiction
book where she's going to read part of a chapter
and that's just going to make that twenty minute increment
of her life that much better than if she had
just maybe zoned out, and maybe zoning out for some
of us back just squandering is like that's the thing
(41:01):
you might need in that moment. But what about those
special things where it's like taking the dog for a walk,
or being conscious and like sitting outside and having your coffee,
or like, can I be nosy? Like what are some little, tiny,
little sweet things that you just you can't explain it,
You don't have to explain it, but it just brings
you little bits of joy.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
There are there are pretty they are pretty small things.
It doesn't take much to bring me joy. In fact,
the big things overwhelm me. But no, like definitely drinking
good coffee, like definitely, like on a rainy thunders day,
thunderous Is that a word? Thunderful? Thunderful? Do you know what,
(41:42):
I'm just saying, delicious day a day where there's a
lot of thunder and rain, like I love just snuggling
up in my bed and reading a good psychological novel.
Like little things like that I feel like make my
life worth living. Was I supposed to say something grandiose?
Speaker 1 (41:59):
That is perfect answer, and it's also still a little contingent.
The weather needs to be thundry, but maybe it's seizing
it when that comes right. It's like knowing the things
that make you feel alive. And that's another thing.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
You know.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
I'll ask groups like what is what what makes you
feel most alive? And that that can be an intimidating question.
So sometimes it's just what are some of the the
top few things?
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Oh, I don't know if those things I mentioned to
make me feel most alive? I feel like that's a
different question. He is a different question.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
You're right, yeah, this is now like person, But now
can I ask, like, what is something that No matter what.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
The most alive thing is a little bit different. So
when I give a keynote talk, I feel very alive.
You know. I have like maybe three thousand people in
a room like listening to me, and I'm able to
express my passion for my life's purpose to and get
instant feedback. There's something so live feeling, a live feeling
(42:54):
about that I make up words, you know, I do
like verbal ju jitsu, you know, because my brain's not
functioning properly. But yeah, do that makes sense? The kind
of livens Oh totally our teaching class.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Yeah yeah, well you're mentors.
Speaker 4 (43:10):
Yeah, I go on, So like these are your like
a live spots and I'm already making an assumption that
your life is already fortunately you know, sprinkled.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
With a lot of those moments where you get to
feel alive. But maybe there's an aha, Like for me,
it's also speaking, and so it's like, well, how do
we rig our lives? Quite frankly, like we're all into
hacks or whatever, like okay, this is a freaking game,
Like how do we just make it so it's just
that much better and a live while we're here? So
for me, it's like, okay, more talking on the stage,
and for you, maybe maybe I'm going to put words
(43:43):
in your mouth, but just by wave example, it could
be like I need to make sure I'm consciously mentoring
three students or people in this period of time rather
than just one because I love it so much, Like
why am I not doing more of it? It's tuning
into that stuff to say what makes you alive? And
how often are you doing it? Because you know it's sad.
And this is the part that I think is just
(44:07):
partly the way we get swept up in the current
of life is that many people, when I ask this question,
they'll identify something that they just haven't done in a while.
You know, it's often creative pursuits. I know you're super creative,
Like people will talk about, oh, it's like when I'm painting,
or you appreciate this one even more. I did a
(44:28):
workshop last year where a guy was like, was this
the whole team? And he's like, the number one thing?
Of course he was willing to answer. He goes doing
improv and the group was like, oh, wow, really been
and I'm like, what, wow, great, when was the last
time you did it? And just let this answer do
the thing It did for me too. He said, Oh
(44:50):
it's my ten years and I just I feel overwhelmed
with this idea, like we have life stuffed inside us.
True and the fact that it's been a decade since
this guy's done a thing that makes him feel most alive,
you know what a travesty And that, to me is
an example of not wanting to get to the end
(45:10):
with all these kohl woodus, which is how my mom died.
That I saw in this notion of we still have
time to do the improve or to go in glass blow.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Well, in that case, can you just tell tell your
friend the Grim Reaper to just chill? Can you give
this to the grim Reaper for me knowing?
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Because if he chilled, it would make a problem worse.
And you know this, You know this more than most
of us because if all your research in the areas
you're so, you know, multidisciplined like you. You know, if
if Grim Reaper was like I'm taking a break, I'm
on a sabbatical, we would not do the thing right.
We would not We would not live it up, you
(45:49):
know what we would do what we would continue to
take it for granted. Wow, we would squander that that
therein lies. I think the problem, right is that we
live a life that, like it was Nietzsche, like manage
the only animal who has to be encouraged to live,
(46:10):
and we have dreams and hopes, and I think many
of us are just quite frankly scared to press the
go button.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Yes, I and yes, And I think what do I think?
I hate the idea that like, you're squandering your life
if you're not always fully alive. I think that the
purpose of life is to experience it. And I think
(46:38):
that you know, kind of being. I think people could
be too hard of themselves that if they're not at
every moment like serving a greater purpose, yes, they're squandering
their life. And I guess it's a little bit of
a pet peeve of mine. How do you reconcize we're.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
So spot on together?
Speaker 2 (46:57):
Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
This is back to that relativity of what astonishingly live
means to each person. And I look at it like
in the two quadrants, right, So two axes that make
quadrants like living wider with vitality, so more of a
hedonic kind of alignment to well being, and then deeper
with meaning. We're of the eu demonic and we're going
to have some people, you know, could really care less
(47:23):
about the deeper meaningful stuff. And it's all like rock
on party and vice versa. Could be more important to
some people where they're like I just want to volunteer
at the church, and I don't really care about going
out or whatever. The thing is so based on each
person's knees. I think that where all this nets out,
I believe is are you experiencing your life to the
(47:43):
degree to which you feel good about it versus the
nichelin because I think we all have that in our knowing.
I know I do because as a kind of homebody introvert,
like my default is going to be back under that
blanket on the couch, right, and I have to be
the one to remind myself to live very regularly, and
I actually get prescriptive about it, knowing, okay, I need
(48:04):
to be you know, social in this dose each month,
do a new thing this time, this much each month,
go to a restaurant this much each month. And that
to me is like I'll always recalibrate it. But I
think that in between all that is an example of
like all sorts of rest, which I don't call languishing.
I call that like I love my life in those moments,
(48:24):
and I also know I love it when I also
incorporate a little bit more. So, I think each one
of us needs to do that honest work and say,
do you have the niggling that, Oh you know what,
I don't think I'm really participating in my life as
much as I know I would thrive if I was
doing more of I.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
Just got an idea. Yeah, yeah, for an article. Ow
all right, Oh what's about? I'll tell you as soon
that right, Okay, here we go. Here's the title. Okay,
don't confuse languishing for rest. No one someone's are in
that yet it needs to be written, do you? You
(49:01):
bring up so many good points, and your book is wonderful,
and I just want to congratulate you on it because look,
I know how much the book means to you. I
know how much work you've put into it. I've seen
that firsthand. And I know how passionate you are about
these ideas. And I have nothing but positive like I'm
rooting for you energy. So I just want to end
(49:22):
the interview by saying that I'm definitely rooting for you
to live your best life.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
Oh, thank you rooting for me with my wake up
in the morning Disney voice energy.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Yes, boy, I love it. Maybe more people could use
that voice in their head.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
We actually need that, like the Elmo button or whatever
the thing you in the morning, just to press that
is maybe the alarm to wake up to. But thank
you for your kind words.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
Thank you for being on my show.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
I appreciate it. Time will spend
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