Embracing Mortality: How to Live a Life Without Regret

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1:02Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantz. My guest today is Jodi Wellman. She's a speaker, author, assistant instructor in the Master of Applied Positive Psychology program at the University of Pennsylvania and founder of 4000 Mondays. She really just wants people to live squander-free lives without deathbed regrets. And we're going to talk about her book that deals with that very topic, You Only Die Once, How to Make It. to the end with no regrets. So Jodi, welcome to the show. Oh, thanks. I'm excited to be here with you. So obviously the point of the book is no regrets, right?

1:40Or how to make it to the end, you know, without regrets. The hook of course is to like shake people and say, you're going to die. So how do you find that people take that? I mean, especially Americans, you know, we don't like to talk about death. I mean, in Eastern cultures, it's actually a very common practice. How do you find particularly people on this side of the ocean, you know, taking to this idea of you telling them they're going to die? Yeah. You know, we are really weird about it. And yet it's a funny thing because on one hand there is the eyebrow raised. I mean, right now half the people listening are like, do I keep listening?

2:16What am I doing here? Wait, I'm kind of allured. What do I do? And so I've noticed this really kind of cool, like, wait, you know, tell me more and yet we're scared and it's okay because we come by our denial honestly especially like you said western cultures we don't really want to talk about it and yet we do want to talk about it deep down it's a taboo and it's like therefore it's alluring and so it's this kind of neat dance between don't talk about it but can you whisper it and so for me i mean i make fun of it i clearly i use a tone that's irreverent and i which i couldn't not do but i doodle about it like Like if you can doodle the Grim Reaper, you, I mean, you can talk about anything if you could do it.

2:55So I, I'm sure you've done a lot of, you know, there are a lot of texts that have dealt with this. One of my actual favorites is it's going to sound really creepy, but the Tibetan book of death is actually an amazing work. And I feel like your book is kind of the Tibetan book of death with humor. You know what? I'm going to log that one. That's the compliment I've received of the week. So I suggest if folks want to pick up Jody's book, I suggest you get the audio book because it's basically a stand-up routine. Thank you for saying that. We do have a lot of fun. There are a lot of F-bombs. And I mean, you got to, if we're talking about the fact that we're all totally going to die.

3:28And I think you're hinting at this. We're talking about death in a way that is not just to talk about death, even though it is sensational and ridiculous. It's in service of carpe diem, of living before we die. But we need the prod. We need the cattle prod, or else we do just take life for granted. Do you find that? it. Yeah. And then I think particularly, so you talk about 4 ,000 Mondays, I'm on the like three digits probably of Mondays. So, you know, it's, it's certainly been a wake up for me. And I think a lot of people in my position in life, I do think a lot of people particularly, I mean, we don't think about all the first 1000, right?

4:032000 through 3000. I think that's where everybody gets stuck in like, well, this is what I'm doing. You use the stapler idea that maybe you could actually recount that story in your own unique way to kind of talk about that idea of like just being stuck. Yes. Well, here I was in my corporate existence, things were good, but they weren't really adding up. You know how you're in life and you're like, why don't, why am I not happier? You know, I'm the trappings of success. I wanted to make a change, but I didn't know what to do. And so I remember being at my desk and I was stapling stuff together.

4:32And I lo and behold, I, you know, I run out of staples. That's no big deal. All right. I get up, I go find the storage room, I get a row of staples and I replace it in my stapler. And I distinctly remember saying to myself, if I'm still here by the time this row of staples is here, like I better not be. And I felt encouraged by this notion, like, oh, I've got a 200 staple deadline. Only the thing is, John, is I did nothing about it. So, you know, about a year goes by, I'm at my desk again, you know, ready to blow my head off, but you know, pretending everyone thought I was engaged. And then I staple more pages together and my stapler runs out and I felt sick to my stomach.

5:08But I like obviously like I was hoping to be saved. I was hoping someone would headhunt me and pluck me out of this quiet life of desperation when, oh, my gosh, you know, I had to learn that lesson. And the truth is I reloaded that stapler like three times, you know. And staplers weren't exactly having a day still, right? I mean, like there weren't a lot of things that we were stapling anymore. No, this was, yes, this is an indication of several years. Okay. And I, but I needed to learn that that in a way, like, holy, like we had agency, you know, we just have to, we have to clue in sometimes to where we're feeling like we are settling in life.

5:42That for me is a real warning sign. Like if we're settling and tolerating for long, oh my gosh, back to this idea that life's short, let's do the thing, even though it's hard to just take the plunge and take the risk to shake it up and find more happiness. So there are a lot of examples and you have some in the book, you know, near death, you know, certainly wakes people up, right? Going bankrupt wakes people up. You know, I mean, there are a lot of things where like comfort is actually kind of like the enemy, right? Oh, you said it so well. I mean, that's my, like, I am, I love a good comfort zone.

6:13Like give me a fleece blanket and I am under it. And it doesn't do much for making stuff happen in life. So these are called boundary situations in psychology where it could be a big birthday. It could be retirement. It could be like a loss of a job, any rite of passage in life that jolts us a little bit to go, whoa, like, you know, my, my world has been moved. Maybe it is a bit of a like existential reminder, like, you know, when you have the big birthday, but those are important. Like to be super honest. I mean, a lot of us in the science of positive psychology, we talk, you know, it's like a crappy reality, but it's the crappy stuff that elicits the most meaning in life.

6:49Yeah. You know, and most of us will, we need the impetus. We need the inciting event and we're just not motivated enough to do it on our own accord. Right. So, I mean, the person that like you describe is stuck in a job, stuck in a marriage, stuck in whatever is like the fear of leaving that, you know, so much scarier than just staying put. That's a, that's kind of a vice, isn't it? It absolutely is. And you know, this notion, as I said, in my TEDx talk, this line, I still think is really important. And it's like, our fear of death is rivaled only by our fear of living. Most of us are not pleased about the idea of death, okay?

7:25Or of public speaking. But we can at least deny and get around that. But the idea to commit and participate and maybe make some bold choices, even though we know they're the ones that are probably going to maybe be the best for us, the ones that, again, back to regret, you started our conversation by outlining the books about avoiding regret. When you're lying there, hopefully lots of morphine coursing through your veins at the end, you know, would be there with everything where you're like, I just work right on doing that. And if that could be the case, now's your chance to course correct it and maybe take action on it.

7:58Like literally starting this afternoon. Yeah. And I'm probably guessing it is not, I just wished I would have worked a few more hours. Yeah. If only I'd answered more emails. So you have some quotes in here. One of my favorites in this topic, I believe is attributed to E.E. Cummings, the poet. And he said, most of us will regret on our deathbeds, not our sins. of commission, but our sins of omission. And I think that to me, you know, beautifully wraps that up, the things we didn't do, not the bad things we did, but the things we just didn't get around to. It's so true. Yeah. So you cite, there's a lot of literature really on this Ryan Holliday's, you know, Stoics, you put Momente Mori in there.

8:38That's been a symbol that he's used in his writing. I had Oliver Berkman on the show, 4 ,000 weeks, I think it is, you know, and And so do you, is there something going on that is causing people more to consider this, to write about this? Or have I just noticed it more recently? Yeah. You're just tuned into it with those triple digits. That's right. Yeah. No. Well, I believe that there has been, again, this equal kind of repelling and yet fascination with death. But I will, like, let's just be honest. I mean, you know, nothing like a global pandemic to wake us up to our temporary nature. So I do think that has tuned us in a little bit more to, whoa, whoa.

9:19You know, the things I thought were like, we do this delusional thing where we like to think, oh, I'll have time to do it later. And later is very elusive and it's very comforting and fuzzy. And now, you know, whether it was the pandemic did help us go, wait, I want to reorganize my priorities. And maybe now that means that I have to take it more seriously. Yeah. It's my pleasure to welcome a new sponsor to the podcast, our friends at ActiveCampaign. ActiveCampaign helps small teams power big businesses with a must-have platform for intelligent marketing automation. We've been using ActiveCampaign for years here at Duct Tape Marketing to power our subscription forms, email newsletters, and sales funnel drip campaigns.

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10:42Now, this offer is limited to new Active Campaign customers only. So what are you waiting for? Fuel your growth, boost revenue, and save precious time by upgrading to Active Campaign today. Okay, so let's go to the other end of the spectrum. You know, we'll come back to dead zones maybe. You talk about not living a squander-free life. Does that give people permission to say, screw it, I'm just going to do whatever I want to do and I'm going to make myself happy and everything else be damned? I mean, is there the risk of like going too far? Yeah, I mean, that would be one hell of a month. Because I think you would, whoa, the party, and then you would drain your bank account and you would probably ostracize yourself from, you know, all of your friends potentially and certainly your partner.

11:27And yeah, but here's where I look at this. there is a potential for some people who maybe are a little more impulsive and maybe don't have like as good of a, you know, self-management skills about the idea, like, do I go and, you know, spend more money now to enjoy my life and then maybe risk not having as much later? Or do I save every penny I have so that I make sure I'm comfortable in retirement and live life then, quote unquote, which we all know is risky. But then I'm going to like kind of be, again, wasting my life and living small now. It's always going to be the awkward balancing act. And my shortcut to finding the answer to that is about asking yourself what you would regret and what you wouldn't and what you would regret doing and not doing.

12:07So there's one woman I know who is, she's planning a really big, expensive family reunion trip. She's going to finance it and take her family on like a really fabulous cruise. And she said like, I've done the math and her grandma's about to die. So there's a bit of a sense of urgency, nothing like death to prod us along again there, John. So she's like, I am, I've done this and I've calculated it. It's, it's a big deal for me to do this financially and with time off. And she's like, I would regret not doing it. And, but she also knows that by doing it, she's not going to compromise her retirement or like, she's not going to not pay the mortgage for seven months because she took her family on this cruise.

12:43Right. So these are about choices where it's like, am I on the verge? Like kind of, is it still technically responsible and, or, you know, is this going to cause more anxiety and peril because like, well, wow, on a whim kids, we're just going to move to the Croatian coast, but like you haven't planned any immigration stuff. And next thing you know, that's going to be a bigger problem. So I do think it's always about what would I regret doing and what would I regret not doing? And am I going to blow up my life later? So the middle ground, I suppose, is living astonishingly alive, perhaps. So talk a little, somebody comes to you and says, what, you know, they probably just come to you saying, I have a feeling, you know, I just, I feel stuck or I feel like something's missing or whatever.

13:23How do you help them unpack and find and reroute the course, I guess? Yeah, I like that term. Well, the number one thing is to diagnose the dead zones. I have lots of tools and ways, like in the book, it's in the premortem, which is like, let's look at your life today, what's working, what's not. And it's about saying, whoa, now that I do this thing, I realize my social life or my lack thereof, Or the fun and recreation category, whoa, I didn't realize that had flatlined as much as it had. And that, wow, I think I might want to pick up a hobby again. And so sometimes it's about identifying in like, no, you can't unsee it ways about where your life is feeling dead.

14:01That gives you a starting point to know where that you might want to throw yourself a freaking, you know, buoy in the water and say like, well, what if, what would that look like? I also look at life in two dimensions, right? So it's like wider with vitality, which is the fun and the pleasure and the neat, fun experiences. And then it's deepening it with meaning. And that's having a sense of purpose and good, meaningful relationships and maybe spirituality if you want. But it's deeper stuff. And so for most of us, we do have a sense of whether we want more of the vitality and or more of the meaning.

14:33And again, that's like a diagnosis of like, oh, my life is meaningful enough. I've got a job that, you know, makes me feel like there's purpose, but I am just so freaking bored. You know, I might want to add in a little more fun. What would that look like? And again, all we can ever do is one thing at a time. So what would maybe in this example, hypothetically, like what would one thing be? Can I get nosy and ask you, like if you're thinking about your life, widening with vitality, deepening with meaning, is there a dimension that stands out to you that you might want a little more of, even if it's already good?

15:02No, but mainly because I'm very intentional about this. The one thing I will say that's lacking a little bit, and this is just, I have a distributed team. I'm here in the mountains in Colorado in a rural area. I can go for literally weeks without seeing another human being besides my wife. And so probably forcing some of that interaction that, you know, and I think some of us have just developed that habit because of this stupid thing called Zoom. You know, we don't even have to go see clients anymore. It's amazing. So I would say that's probably the area that would come to mind first. Yeah. Maybe just a touch more of the social side.

15:35Yeah. Yeah. The anti-shining situation. Yep. Yep. So what have you, I'm assuming that you, because you work with people, you've had a couple of successes with people breaking through a little bit. What are some of the things you've learned actually from seeing people make a change? I love this question. Well, I think about in workshops I do, which is just mostly the case now doing like keynotes and workshops with groups and teams and events. And it's like, there's something that's really cool that happens when you socialize your regrets that you might be having or your desires for more vitality and or meaning and like bucket list stuff, right?

16:11People love to learn and go, oh, that's right. I wanted to learn how to speak Italian too. And all of a sudden everyone's adding to their lists. So there was a group I worked with recently that did this really cool thing, which is kind of what I advocate, but they actually did it, which is what if you supported each other in living these full lives? Oh, outside of the confines of work, because the presumption, and this is based in research, which I go into in a hopefully not boring way, is about how if If you're happy and well-rounded and fulfilled outside of work, you're going to be way better when you're in work and more productive and more creative and you know this.

16:43So this group all committed to things that they were going to do to either feel widening, deepening, and they held each other accountable. So then I came back around one quarter later and it was like, someone's like, I went whitewater rafting. I'm so proud I did it. And someone else was so excited because they rekindled their music habit. someone else was really excited because they well they did this person did like the orientation to be a volunteer at the local whatever because you have to go through all the steps but like so they were actually holding each other accountable and high-fiving each other for not just the work outcomes but for living and that was a pretty cool thing that again builds trust on a team because then you're all you know supportive of each other's lives in a broader sense yeah you start seeing them as people.

17:27Oh my gosh. That's got to be against some HR policy somewhere. So you've, I think I said, actually, sorry, instructor of master of applied positive psychology. So how do you take that academia and bring it down to practical, you know, applications for, you know, human emotions? Yeah. Well, everything that I do, every intervention, every recommendation is rooted somewhere in the science and it's typically positive psychology, but it could be other branches of social psychology or cognitive or other parts of psychology. And so, for example, if I'm talking to somebody about one little life tip, if you will, I call it like this, the lowest hanging fruit is anticipation.

18:08It's having something to look forward to. And so I have this very simple intervention where it's like, take out your calendar and you want to have something to look forward to one week in advance, one month in advance, and one year in advance. And these can be big or small. I don't, I don't care, but that is all rooted in the science of savoring. And so I don't need to necessarily give people the references or details, but I will let them know at the beginning of every workshop that it's rooted in the science. And when I'm writing my blog posts, I will post it. I will give the reference, but it's, you know, there is, I'm glad you asked that question because it matters to me that things are generally empirically based, right?

18:43Not just like an instinct, not that those things don't also deliver for some people. There are some people I know who swear by putting out, you know, know, manifesting. And that's really great. And if that works for you, do it all the time. And I don't have the evidence necessarily on some topics. And so I just would not go there personally. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So it's funny as I listen, you talk about the anticipation. I remember that's certainly advice people give, you know, when, like when I have aging parents and things that, you know, my, my father passed, it's been a few years now, but I remember them actually talking about saying, you know, make sure that he's like got something to look forward to, you know, and obviously that works at all ages of life, but I imagine, you know, it's probably even more dramatic in a case where somebody feels like they don't have much going on.

19:32It's a really good point. It also has applications for people who have more of sort of a clinical issue in terms of mental health issues, depression, just having that little thing on the calendar that might be just a glimmer, you know, and we're just really simple creatures at the end of the day, right? It's like, just tell me I've got a good meal coming on Saturday night and I'll live for it. Yeah. It's our subconscious completely controlling us. So Jodi, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. Is there someplace you'd actually invite people to connect with you and find a copy of You Only Die Once?

20:04Oh, well, thank you for asking. I am over at 4thousand.com and the books there and fun stuff, resources, you can calculate how many Mondays you have left there. So no excuses not to do your mortality math. Yeah. There's a lyric in a song that I heard the other day that I thought was so funny. The artist goes on and says, if you're only young once, how often are you old? And I thought, you know, that's really, you know, like a lot of people say, oh, you're only young once, right? And I thought, well, okay, how often are you old? I think you'll incorporate that in somehow. Thank you. I'm writing that down on my yellow sticky.

20:37Thank you. It's John, John Craigie is the artist so go look him up okay he's hysterical too live well again jody i appreciate you taking a few moments and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road