Avoid Regret and Find Your Alive Zones | Jodi Wellman

25:48Like I fall prey to that one. Are you doing the same thing on Saturday morning? Are we falling into routines that initially comfort us because it's like, yay, I know how, I know what I'm doing. I get, you know, it helps manage chaos, but that's our opportunity is to shake it up a little bit. And so that is one of the best ways is to stop and say, where do I, where can I add more novelty to my life? Like, is there something I'm doing, do I need to, like, even something as basic as, like, look in your freaking spice drawer and, like, when was the last time you cooked with one of those spices? Or when was the last time you tried a totally different cuisine?

26:22Or when was the last time you went out and, like, read a different kind of book than you would normally read? Like, shaking things up in your life just enough so that it snaps us out of that kind of highly functioning zombie routine that we tend to get stuck in. Yeah, I'm just picturing some of my fast-forwarding highlight being staring at my phone and being frustrated with myself and scrolling. Well, you know you're not alone, right? Oh man, that's the magnet these days, yeah. I know we rail against it quite a bit, but it is that one device that gives us that instant comfort in some of the chaos that we discussed, right?

26:58And managing that. And I think what I felt coming out of the pandemic was an urgency to get back to novelty, to get back to travel, to get back to those things that I felt that I lost. and we had this global event where everyone was faced with their mortality. We were all touched by it, knowing people who were passing, whose lives were disrupted, unable to do really important things, unable to get married, unable to bury family members, unable to travel and do the work that we want to do in our lives. So I feel like there was this global wake-up call. Have you found research around what that has done for our view of mortality?

27:35I love that you brought this up because it was a fantastic example of how, wow, when we lose the ability to do something, we realize what we had. Oh, wow, I didn't even know I needed to be grateful that I could go out and go out to that cocktail bar or whatever it is. So it was temporal scarcity, but it wasn't temporal. It was just like, now I don't have it. And I think a lot of us had these then pent up dreams to do things. But interestingly, so here's where, of course, there are stories about like revenge travel and spending and people trying to, ah, or like make up for lost time. Some of that exists, but that's just the stuff that's like more obvious, flashier and noisier.

28:11We see it on social media. What is actually happening for many of us, and I lump myself into this, is oh, how fast we come up with our new ways of living. So we adapt super fast, which is part of the problem. Like it's a good thing so that we can manage some of our anxiety, but usually it's sometimes it's like, but then we bore ourselves to death. Many of us have not actually come out of our COVID slumber. And that is true back to some of the research I do around people diagnosing themselves loosely, you know, but as meaningfully bored where, yeah, like my job, like I do good things for, you know, whoever my client is or my audience or whatever, or I help, you know, people in the hospital I work in, whatever.

28:51But we haven't created a new rhythm yet about getting up and out. And I don't know if you guys feel that way. I mean, maybe you're just like, no, the minute I I could get back out there. I was there and I was like raring to go. But back to the idea about routines, we got used to a narrower way of living. We didn't love it, but then we just kind of kept living it. And then it just became like harder and harder, even when we could to like get up and out. Cause you're like, yeah, but I kind of got used to being on the couch. Like New York was famous for late dinners. And I don't know if you guys ever, you know, if you caught this stuff, like now it's like the early bird dinner, people are going out at all.

29:27It's not so much the late night. And it's like, everyone's like, no, but I learned to love my couch. I don't know if you guys felt that way post coming out of pandemic or what your lives are like now. Well, we had discussed yesterday that there was no great recovery, right? Like our institutions failed at every level of COVID, including getting out of it. And so we still have people wearing masks. We still have people who are in fear of their lives for COVID because there hasn't been any full consensus of what was going on. So, of course, we have people still asleep. We still have people who are living their lives as if we were still in the deep of the throes of COVID.

30:18And to be completely honest with you, if you were to ask me where we're at with that, I'd tell you I don't know, because no one has said anything. The signals have been mixed from day one. All the messaging was absolutely confusing. And due to that, it has wrecked and impacted everyone's lives. It's such a good point you're making. And it is still in this weird sort of limbo of wait, what? But, and I think we're going to need to, back to AJ, the word you used, like agency, you know, it's like all we can do is look at our own situations and go, okay, to what extent am I still living? Is it a conscious fear maybe?

30:59Or is it just to be super honest? Because I believe that this is the case for most of us is that we just created a new routine of not doing as much, you know? And so we're lacking in needing more vitality and or meaning because it could be both depending what, you know, floats your boat and what you need more of. so I think it's like while we wait for history to tell us how it netted out I think we can still be the ones to do exactly what we're talking about which is like okay is if I do my pulse check and I realize that I've let my like leisure life like what's that all I do is work now because I log in all day and I'm never logging off and like what maybe that is okay you know what maybe I will go sign up for that photography class that I've been curious about like that's that's the initiative we can take is taking that one step forward into something that actually you're kind of curious about.

31:49I feel like we owe ourselves that. Yeah, I think for many of us, we fell into survive, obviously. And we've forgotten what it means to actually thrive and move beyond just survive. And for our clients in particular, that's really thrive socially. So we started to have distrust around strangers. Obviously, there's concern about catching something that could kill you. So naturally we close off ourselves to outsiders and to strangers. We shrank our social circle if there was any socialization at all. And I don't think we've really broken through to the other side of like getting comfortable again with talking to strangers, interacting with new people, seeking new connections.

32:28And that's why a lot of clients approach us to do the work with us, because they're recognizing some of these skills I had before have atrophied because I haven't been put in situations to use them. And I've been forced into this survival fearful mode that I now recognize is not serving me and it's not allowing me to thrive and lead the fulfilling life that I want. Yeah. And back to like the last words, the fulfilling life I want. Again, that's like, do you even know what that looks like? Because I think, again, we can just go through our days without actually being clear. And I don't think it needs to be buttoned down.

33:00Like let's leave room for spontaneity. Like that's part of a great life too. It's like, I don't know where the wind might take me on my vacation. Let's leave it open to chance. And have we done a little bit of that premortem introspection to be like, what do I love to do? What does bring me joy? What does make me feel like I'm in some way doing something that feels like purpose? And so those are those questions I think that are important too, to feel like we're defining and then being able to make choices to live a life that feels fulfilling for us, however we define it. And for our audience, do I have to do those things alone?

33:37That's really where I push back on a lot of our clients is, okay, maybe you found some things that bring you joy, but are you engaging them in isolation? Are you lone wolfing them? Are you choosing not to involve others who would find joy doing it with you? Yeah, you're reminding me. One of the founders of positive psychology, his name was Chris Peterson. May he rest in peace. When he was asked to distill positive psychology down to as few words as possible, he did a good job. He used three words. he said, other people matter. And then he later elaborated by saying that there may be no happy hermits.

34:08So the idea is like, where can we combine some of these things together? And I think you're onto it. It's like, okay, if you feel like, let's just say you do this diagnosis back, Michael, to what you were talking about, like finding your dead zones. And you're like, oh my God, my health has gone to shit. And my social life. It's like, well, what if you went and did that that crazy aerial yoga thing with your friend that also was curious to try something new. So if you can combine things, I mean, obviously that's like a time management win and a life win, you know? You know what drains your energy faster than a bad networking event?

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37:05Go to quince.com slash charm for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash charm. Free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash charm. So with that, the flip side of the Alive Zone. So we recognize dead zones and obviously our listeners care about self-improvement and care about growing and fulfilling life. What do we do with our Alive Zones? Do we double down? Do we say, oh, that box is checked and I can move on? How do we view those areas of our life that are alive? Yeah, because of that whole hedonic treadmill thing that exists.

37:43We adapt to every single great thing and crap thing in our lives. We definitely need to nurture it and pay more attention to it. And so most go-getters, like y 'all and your clients, we're not satisfied to just be in the astonishingly alive zone, which just by definition is anywhere plus on vitality and anywhere plus on meaning. So when we're there, we're not just going to sit back and light up a smoke necessarily. We're going to be like, you know what? I want more. Like, I would love to know what else it's going to take. Like, how do I get to the next level in this class? Like, how do I, how do I max it out?

38:23And it's just kind of like inching over and up on this spectrum, which happens to be in like the top right corner of the spectrum, this quadrant. so the double down is that is actually the easiest lowest hanging fruit in you know at least in the world of you know positive psychology or just like what you you know self-improvement right it's like we think sometimes we have to reinvent the wheel we've got to find this new thing and if that is interesting to you oh great keep finding new things if it really serves you but most of us are missing the chance to go okay wait a sec what is it right now like if this thing i do is bringing me such joy.

38:59Like when I hang out with this friend, every time we go to lunch, he makes me laugh. We have a great time. I'm always like scintillated by learning new things. Like go out with him for lunch more. Like, what are we doing? We have the answers to the freaking test of how we should live our lives. Like max out more of what's there. Like that's positive psychology. One is enhancing and maximizing your strengths and what's good. So we don't need to go find a new friend to bring us to, I mean, do that too. But like, what about that? What about every time I am in a, I'm just thinking of a client, she's like, oh, in a bubble bath.

39:33Or I just finished a conversation with a friend who's like, she got into drumming and she's like, the drums, that was like the life I needed to live outside of my busy work life. And when she is doing the drums, she's like, she gets into flow, you know, that important psychological state. She's like, I am like, all of a sudden it's nine at night and I don't know what the hell happened. I was just in it. And like, oh yeah, you know what, could you do that more? Those are the easy things that I think we overlook. Do more of what's already serving us. And with the dead zones we've recognized, how do we start to move them to that astonishingly alive state?

40:07That's back to that pulse check of, okay, we already got a framework. We're living wider with vitality and deeper with meaning. That's what we want. For many of us, one of those is going to cause that little niggling and pay attention to that. So you got to start somewhere. And so, okay, which one gave you that uncomfortable feeling the most? Is it, yeah, is it vitality? I haven't really been getting, having as much fun lately. Or is it meaning like, yeah, no, I've been having fun. Fun's good. But I've been coming home feeling like an empty hollow shell. That's a shallow kind of guy or gal. Like that's a good, like know that and then identify what is one thing on either one of those spectrums that can help to move the needle a little bit.

40:48And this is so not glamorous, but you guys know this, right? This is like so basic, but like this great life we long to live is not going to get handed to us. We have to actually fathom what, okay, what it might be. It's like, okay, yeah, you know what? I think I might want to do that mixed martial arts thing, which I would actually never answer, but let's just say for fun. and then oh I want to do MMA for sure and then okay well what would be like weird like look it up and book a class like you actually have to put it in your calendar or else I think what we do is we do this thing and like we all do this right I do all the time I have a good intention I have an idea I'll be like yeah I'm totally going to look into it and like I said earlier we feel just good enough to take zero action or we do that thing where like yeah I'm going to get to it at some point, or like you say to friends, oh my gosh, we totally have to get together.

41:37I'll fly to Oregon. We'll get together one day soon. And then we break our integrity with ourselves in some little way where we're like, oh, I am a woman of all talk, no action, or some talk, some action. And that's still just maybe not good enough for the life that I kind of want to live. I want to be like, I'm living, not to say large, like it's not for optics to be super clear. I don't, like I don't post my personal life too much on social media for people to see that I did or didn't see my friend in Oregon or that I did or didn't sign up for MMA, which you will never see. But like you have to book it, you know?

42:11So I think that that's the key too is like identify, is it vitality? Is it meaning? Pick one thing that might just in any way spark your interest and book a freaking class or just book the trip or like put it in your calendar or like playing the brunch with your friend. You get the idea? Well, an image that stuck out for me in the book is this idea of baking your own happiness pie. And you talk about some of us waiting for someone to hand us that delicious happiness pie, for someone to promote us, for someone to find us, for someone to date us, for someone to accept us and say, now you're happy.

42:45But in actuality, we have to look up the recipe of, is it an apple pie? Is it a key lime pie? And then we have to find the ingredients and bake our own happiness. And I think waiting is where we feel the most just trudging along. Like, what is holding me back from the happiness that I want versus taking the agency and getting the ingredients, assembling them, booking the class, and baking the pie? The way you just described that, I think, helped underscore, let's be honest, some of the reasons we don't take, ooh, agency and initiative and motivation because we're going to die. Like, it takes effort.

43:23like it actually takes effort to live a life you want to live and I resent that fact but it's true and I talk a lot about how it's not just like you have to give a shit about your life I say you have to give two shits and like that means like being conscious and thinking about it and then planning it and making it happen and we're not always going to nail it every month you know but like it takes effort and sometimes that's momentum that many of us who are on the couch like trust me, I love the couch and like some quality Netflix time. It like a body on the couch watching Netflix remains the body on the couch watching Netflix.

43:59Like it takes effort to look up where you might want to take the drumming lessons or the tennis or whatever it is. Right. And then sometimes it takes money and time. And I recognize those are resources that aren't always ample, but we can also get creative, right? So I think that we have to be prepared also for, I think it's like the dosing. I think it's that if we're already feeling like we might be in the dead zone or just not in that astonishing life zone and kind of like hoping for more, be like, okay, I can't overdo this because I'm gonna discourage myself if I tried to take on too much too soon.

44:37What would be, again, one thing I could do today that just shows myself that I give two shits and getting the thing booked. So I think it's like pacing ourselves and our desire to just like live large. I call it a life worth fighting for. And for our clients, it's like, well, if you want it, are you willing to fight for it? If that's the life that you find is amazing, right? Or the life that you want to be living, okay, well, if that's what you want, are you willing to fight for it? Because you are going to have to get off the couch. You are going to have to put in effort. You are going to have to go out of your way to make these things happen.

45:16I've seen many people talk about all of these things, but when I ask them, are you willing to fight for it? Well, then the conversation changes. So if that's what you want, you better be willing to go after it. Johnny, I love your language around the fighting. It's like also giving our lives a fighting chance to be full of vitality and meaning. And that is back to the story of identifying what do you want to do and what would it take to book it today, to book it this week. I love that, though. You've got to fight for it. Yeah, and that's why I enjoyed the baking a happiness pie analogy, because so many of us would love to consume the delicious pie, and that would be great.

45:58But in actuality, we have to take action in these areas once we recognize that this is a dead zone. This is meaningful. This is a pre-gret. This is something that I said I was going to do, bucket list, and another year has gone by. A full pandemic has passed, and I haven't changed anything. Yeah, back to that pie. I think a lot of people will think, well, it's preordained. The degree to which I'm going to be happy in life is something that 50 % of it, roughly, is your biology. and some of it is definitely going to be circumstance. A lot of researchers will debate the percentages, whether it's 10 or 20, but it is not as much as we think.

46:35You know, it's the external things that are around us, oh, like a pandemic or oh, like your sort of socioeconomic status you were born into or et cetera. There are things that will happen, you know, a car accident or so on. But again, back to the idea that we do generally adapt to things that happen to us and then the rest is intentional action, which is exactly what we're talking about. I'm living a life worth fighting for, living a life worth living. So what do you say to our listeners who are on the verge of an existential crisis thinking about death? I say, I'm right there with you. I get you.

47:08Like, I like the idea about, like, getting to the cusp of an existential crisis. Like, I want, like, an existential, I don't know. Episode? Like, grunge. Not crisis? Episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, let's just, like, if we can take the dose. But it's an indication that I think that life matters. And it's an indication that there is fear, of course, and it is one of the greatest anxieties. And I think what we can do is I find solace in the research that shows that sometimes our fear of death is ameliorated by living life more fully now. So there is an indication for some people that their correlation, like, I'm more afraid of death if I feel like I haven't done this life justice so that I'm going to get to the end and feel that sense of my life was left unlived.

47:53And so, well, my obvious answer is just the, well, then, golly, we have a good opportunity here. so I think that recognizing that if an existential crisis type moment is often at a big key life event like you were saying AJ and Johnny like you have clients that come and like something's gone on and those I actually are I'm grateful for in life like if without a catharsis like without some kind of an event that is going to incite us to take change then that is when we often sometimes just like we languish in that slumbering existence again for year after year and sometimes decade after decade. So on one hand, I'm like, thank you for this event.

48:34Yes, I recognize I am, you know, shitting my pants at the idea that my time is going to be temporary. And is there an area where I might be able to make a decision to live more fully that might help to assuage that? And like getting more intimate with that idea. And again, back to what we said, not in a just a general way, but in a really deep reflective way about what have I done so far in my life that I'm proud of? What do I want to be able to look back on and say I was proud of? Like literally the way that I lived. And this is not a judgment about what life should look like, because this is very, this is not a prescription that your life needs to look or sound or feel a certain way, or you know, you have to go to the following countries or concerts or events, right?

49:20It's like only you know what it helps when you feel like you've had, like this is my right dose of vitality and my right dose of meaning. And if we're being honest with ourselves, sometimes that's when we say, you know, one area might need to turn the dial up. But I think it's that introspection that we have to do and recognize that in the grand scheme of, okay, I don't feel so hot about this, but I've got 1 ,830 of these Mondays left. And now if I'm going to prioritize, here are the things that I would love to take action on before that time. So that last piece, there's a level of self-compassion and forgiveness too for the past that I think is important as we start to wrestle with these regrets and thoughts of Mondays that weren't so great.

50:02Thanks for noticing that. Yeah. If we could all just give ourselves a permission slip to just like let that stuff go, because it doesn't typically matter. And I like the research that exists in regret science about how most of us find a way, whether it's through cognitive dissonance or any other way, to just understand that, yeah, you know, I did that dumb thing. you know like yeah I was a jackass or yeah I had the affair or I did the bad thing and like wish I hadn't but the haunting comes from the belief that oh you know I always wanted to try that thing to start that business to start that podcast or whatever it is and like I didn't because that's an indication sometimes like that's fear running the running the roost and and that is not um for most people like that's the thing that will make us feel like could there have been a better version of my life?

50:55And could that version have been one where, let's be honest, maybe it didn't work out, but most people are more proud of themselves for giving it a go and not having it work than not giving it a go at all. Yeah, that's such a salient point. I think for many of us who might be leading a life that's being run by regret right now around past mistakes or experiences or areas where we let ourselves down. Let's just, we are all officially forgiven. We shall all say it in unison. So the book is full of great exercises and it's really active in the way it's written and the way that you can take lessons from it and apply it.

51:37I guess in conclusion, so now what? You know, you've done the premortem, you've looked at all these areas of your life, you may have recognized some things that need to change. What is the main thing you'd love our audience and your readers to take away from the book? I would be remiss if I didn't just come right back down to the theme, which is like, befriend the grim reaper. Like, the closer you can get to that guy, I mean, obviously with like enough of a healthy distance, because you will totally snuff your life out. But be not afraid. Like, go near the thing that's scary, because that can be that saving grace that we often need in order to see that perspective.

52:16So that is, of course, that's thematic, as if it hasn't been made abundantly clear. But I would say from an action perspective, it is choosing the one thing. Because it would actually be really super sad and possibly ironic if we, you know, you get through nine chapters and you're all excited about, whoo, I like, here are my dreams. And here's, yes, I know where I am dead. And I need the AED. And I know what might make me feel alive inside. And I'm going to push it off to retirement. like whoa whoa whoa that feels sadder than anything right so it's about picking the one thing and then every time you do the thing it builds a muscle it builds a muscle of like a liveness inside of us that proves to ourselves like yes I am expanding my life even whether it's post-covid or post-depression or post-fear or all the things that we post having a busy period of life or just just I lost the plot you know and I fell off the wagon of like living like I mean it And so one little thing at a time with diligence.

53:14And if we can just do that and have something in our calendars to look forward to, as I always say, like every week and month and year in advance, like literally that's an assignment. Like, is there something in your calendar that you're looking forward to in those three timeframes? That is a good indication that we are consistently making stuff happen for ourselves that makes us feel good. I love that. And I think it's a great place to wrap. Where can our audience find out more about the book and the work that you do, Jodi? Well, I am over at 4000mondays.com. And if you don't feel like doing your own math on the resources page, there's a calculator that'll do your math for you.

53:49So there's that. And the book is You Only Die Once, How to Make it to the End with No Regrets. And yeah, may we just do this life justice. No regrets. Thank you, Jodi. Thank you, guys.

54:12This week's shout out comes from Mike. And well, Mike, go ahead and tell him yourself. My name is Mike and I'm a real estate developer in Los Angeles. My experience with the Art of Charm X Factor Accelerator program has been phenomenal. And the most valuable lessons I've learned is how to carry a conversation better and identify emotional bits. Using these techniques now, I'm more comfortable in any social situations than I was ever before. By putting into practice everything I learned in this program has helped me improve my personal and professional relationships. I highly recommend this program to anyone that is struggling socially or in relationships in general because I have greatly improved.

54:49Right on. And it was a pleasure working with you, Mike. Let me ask you, are you using these concepts in your life? What's stopping you? We understand you're busy. That's why we want to systemize our processes by speeding up the learning curve, cutting out the frustration and guesswork, and streamlining your efforts in our X-Factor Accelerator experience. Boost your social confidence, communicate powerfully, and build your social capital with easy-to-use framework strategies and tools straight from this show. We do this by short to-the-point trainings, Q &A Zoom coaching sessions, virtual implementation workshops, and a money-back guarantee.

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56:10All right, before we head out, a huge thank you to our producers, Michael Harold and Eric Montgomery. Everyone, go out there and have an epic, epic, epic week. Yeah, I remember you. You were the bad boy. You threw your love away. Like it was just a toy. And you sold the world. You're a song of a tragedy. Cause you had your taste of black on the yesterday. Yeah, but I remember you. Oh, yeah, I remember you. It was a bad day that I found it a wrong way