Embracing Mortality: How to Live a Life Without Regret

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(01:03): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch, my guest, today’s 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 4,000 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.

Jodi Wellman (01:34): Oh, thanks. I’m excited to be here with you.

John Jantsch (01:36): So obviously the point of the book is no regrets, right? Or how to make it to the end without regrets. The hook, of course, is to shake people and say you’re going to die. So how do you find that people take that? I mean, especially Americans, 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 taking to this idea of you telling ’em they’re going to die?

Jodi Wellman (02:06): Yeah, 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 of people listening are like, do I keep listening? What am I doing here? Wait, I’m kind of all lured. What do I do? And so I’ve noticed this really kind of cool, wait, tell me more. And yet we’re scared and it’s okay. 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 where it gets 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 which I couldn’t not do, but I doodle about it. If you can doodle the grim reaper, I mean, you can talk about anything if you could doodle it.

John Jantsch (02:54): So I am sure you’ve done a lot of, 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.

Jodi Wellman (03:09): You know what? I’m going to log that one. That’s the compliment I’ve received of the week woman.

John Jantsch (03:13): So I suggest if folks want to pick up Jodi’s book, I suggest you get the audio book because it’s basically a standup routine.

Jodi Wellman (03:21): Thank you for saying that. We do have a lot of fun. There are a lot of F-bombs. And I mean, if we’re talking about the fact that we’re all totally going to die, and 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?

John Jantsch (03:46): Yeah, and I think particularly, so you talk about 4,000 Mondays. I’m on the three digits probably of Mondays. So 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 it all. The first 1000, right? 2000 through 3000. I think that’s where everybody gets stuck in, 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 talk about that idea of just being stuck.

Jodi Wellman (04:17): Yes. Well, here I was in my corporate existence, things were good, but they weren’t really adding up how you’re in life and you’re like, why am I not happier? 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, and lo and behold, 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, 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 about a year goes by, I’m at my desk again, ready to blow my head off, but pretending everyone thought I was engaged. And then I stapled more pages together and my stapler runs out, and I felt sick to my stomach, but obviously 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, I had to learn that lesson. And the truth is, I reloaded that stapler like three times

John Jantsch (05:23): Before, and staplers weren’t exactly having a day still, right? I mean, there weren’t a lot of things that we were stapling anymore.

Jodi Wellman (05:30): No, yes, this is an indication of several years. But I needed to learn that in a way, holy, why can we have agency? We have to clue in sometimes to where we are feeling like we are settling in life. That for me, is a real warning sign 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.

John Jantsch (05:56): So there are a lot of examples, and you have some in the book, near death certainly wakes people up, right? Going bankrupt wakes people up. I mean, there are a lot of things where comfort is actually kind of like the enemy, right?

Jodi Wellman (06:09): Oh, you said it so well. I mean, I love a good comfort zone. Give me a fleece blanket and I, I’m 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 a loss of a job. Any rite of passage in life that jolts us a little bit to go, whoa, my world has been moved. Maybe it is a bit of an existential reminder when you have the big birthday, but those are important to be super honest. I mean, a lot of us in the science of positive psychology, we talk, it’s like a crappy reality, but it’s the crappy stuff that elicits the most meaning in life. 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.

John Jantsch (06:57): So I mean, the person that you described is stuck in a job, stuck in a marriage, stuck in whatever. Is the fear of leaving that so much scarier than just staying put? That’s kind of a vice, isn’t it?

Jodi Wellman (07:10): Absolutely is. And 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 or 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 be the best for us, the ones that, again, back to regret, you started our conversation by outlining the books about avoiding regret. It’s like when you’re lying there, hopefully lots of morphine coursing through your veins at the end would be there with their vein thing where you’re like, I just regret not doing that. And if that could be the case, now’s your chance to course correct it and maybe take action on it. Literally starting this afternoon,

John Jantsch (08:01): And I’m probably guessing it is not. I just wished I would’ve worked a few more hours,

Jodi Wellman (08:07): Only I’d answered more emails.

John Jantsch (08:09): So you have some quotes in here. One of my favorites in this topic, I believe is attributed to EE 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 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.

Jodi Wellman (08:29): It’s so true.

John Jantsch (08:30): Yeah. So you cite, there’s a lot of literature really on this. Ryan Holidays stoics, you put Mente Maori in there. That’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. And so 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?

Jodi Wellman (08:58): Yeah, you’re just tuned into it with those triple digits.

John Jantsch (09:00): That’s right.

Jodi Wellman (09:01): Yeah. No. Well, I believe that there has been, again, this equal kind of repelling and yet fascination with death. But let’s just be honest. I mean 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. The things I thought were, 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 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,

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Jodi Wellman (11:13): Yeah, I mean, that would be one hell of a month

John Jantsch (11:16): Because

Jodi Wellman (11:17): I think you would whoa, the party and then you would drain your bank account and you would probably ostracize yourself from all of your friends potentially, and certainly your partner. And yeah, 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 as good of a self-management skills about the idea, do I go and 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, which we all know is, but then I’m going to 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 would regret doing and not doing.

(12:07): So 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 a really fabulous cruise. And she said, 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’ve done this and I’ve calculated it. 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. But she also knows that by doing it, she’s not going to compromise her retirement or she’s not going to not pay the mortgage for seven months because she took her family on this cruise. So these are about choices where it’s like, am I on the verge? Is it still technically responsible, or is this going to cause more anxiety and peril because well, wow, on a whim, kids, we’re just going to move to the Croatian coast, but 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?

John Jantsch (13:08): So the middle ground, I suppose, is living astonishingly alive. Perhaps somebody comes to you and says, they probably just come to you saying, I have a feeling I feel stuck, or I feel like something’s missing or whatever. How do you help them unpack and find and reroute the course, I guess?

Jodi Wellman (13:29): Yeah, I like that term. Well, the number one thing is to diagnose the dead zones. Lots of tools and ways in the book. It’s in a pre-mortem, 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, you can’t unsee it ways about where your life is feeling dead. That gives you a starting point to know where that you might want to throw yourself a fricking buoy in the water and say, well, what would that look like? I also look at life in two dimensions.

(14:12): So it’s 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. And again, that’s a diagnosis of like, no, my life is meaningful enough. I’ve got a job that makes me feel like there’s purpose, but I am just so freaking bored. 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 would maybe in this example, hypothetically, what would one thing be? Can I get nosy and ask you 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

John Jantsch (15:01): Good? No, 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, and I think some of us have just developed that habit because of this stupid thing called zoom. 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.

Jodi Wellman (15:33): Maybe just a touch more of the social side. Yeah, yeah. The antis shining situation.

John Jantsch (15:38): Yep. Yep. So you, I’m assuming that because you work with people, you’ve had a couple successes with people breaking through a little bit. What are some of the things you’ve learned actually from seeing people make a change?

Jodi Wellman (15:52): I love this question. Well, I think about in workshops I do, which is mostly the case now doing 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 bucket list stuff. People love to learn and go, oh, oh, that’s right. I wanted to learn how to speak Italian too. And all of a sudden, everyone’s adding to their lists. 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 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 this, so this group all committed to things that they were going to do to either feel widening, deepening, and they held each other accountable.

(16:53): So then I came back around one quarter later and it was like, someone’s like, oh, wait, what a 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, well, this person did the orientation to be a volunteer at the local whatever, because you have to go through all the steps. 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. Then you’re all supportive of each other’s lives in a broader sense.

John Jantsch (17:25): Yeah, you start seeing ’em as people. Oh my gosh, that’s got to be against some HR policy somewhere. So 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 applications for human emotions?

Jodi Wellman (17:47): Yeah. Well, everything that 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. It’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 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 I’m glad you asked that question because it matters to me that things are generally empirically based, not 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 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,

John Jantsch (19:01): Yeah, absolutely. So it is funny, as I listen to you talk about the anticipation, I remember, that’s certainly advice people give when I have aging parents and things that my father passed. It’s been a few years now, but I remember them actually talking about saying, make sure that he’s got something to look forward to. And obviously that works at all ages of life, but I imagine it’s probably even more dramatic in a case where somebody feels like they don’t have much going on.

Jodi Wellman (19:32): It’s a really good point. It also has applications for people who have more of clinical issue in terms of mental health issues, depression, just having that little thing on the calendar that might be just a glimmer, 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.

John Jantsch (19:49): 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’s someplace you’d actually invite people to connect with you and find a copy of. You Only Die Once.

Jodi Wellman (20:05): Oh, well, thank you for asking. I am over@four.com and the book’s there and fun stuff. Resources, you can calculate how many monies you have left there. So no excuses not to do your mortality math.

John Jantsch (20:15): 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 thought that’s really 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 ought incorporate that in somehow.

Jodi Wellman (20:35): Thank you. I’m writing that down on my yellow sticky. Thank

John Jantsch (20:37): You. John Craigy is the artist, so go look him up. He’s hysterical. Too alive. Well, again, Jodi, I appreciate you taking a few moments and hopefully we will run into you one of these days out there on the road.