459. 4,000 Mondays: Making Every Week Count with Jodi Wellman

Welcome to episode 459 of the Brainy Business, Understanding the psychology of why people buy. In today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Jody Wellman, author of you only die Once. Ready?

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You are listening to the Brainy Business podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer.

Hello.

Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business podcast. Did you know that the average lifespan is just 4,000 weeks total? That's it. It's amazing how when you think about an average lifespan of 80 years or so, it feels so long. Like you have all the time in the world. But for 4,000 weeks, that is absolutely not enough. And instead of feeling paralyzed by that, my guest today, Jody Wellman, is here to talk about how you can live your best life, whatever that means to you, by really embracing the fact that those weeks are trickling by fast if you let them. Jody is a speaker, author and facilitator on living lives worth living. She founded 4,000Mondays to help people make the most of the time they're l lucky to be above ground. She has a Masters of applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania where she's also an assistant instructor in the Master's program and a facilitator in the pen Resilience program. She is an ICF professional certified coach and a certified professional co active coach. Jody's TEDx talk is called how death can bring you back to Life. With over 1.3 million million views, it's the 14th most watched TEDx talk released in 2022 out of 15 900. So that's a pretty big deal. Today we are discussing her fantastic book, you only die once, how to make it to the end with no regrets. Really quickly, before we get into the conversation, I want to be sure you know that there are links in the show notes for my top related past episodes and books, ways to get in touch with Jody and myself and more. It's all within the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 459 now let's jump right in. Jody Wellman, welcome to the Brainy Business podcast.

Oh, I'm just giddy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Yay.

I am so delighted to have you as well. Excited to be chatting with you and as I know I was saying to you in our pre chat there's so much overlap in the work that we're doing, but in a way that I think is just complimentary. It's not like we're saying exactly the same thing in exactly the same way. So super excited for everyone to hear about you and your work today. If you can kick it off for everyone who doesn't yet know you, can you share a little bit about yourself and the work that you do?

Okay, happy to. Yeah. Jody Wellman. I founded 4000 Mondays because, spoiler alert, that's roughly all we get in life, 4,000 of those weeks. And I like to write and draw and speak about all things mortality as a motivator, because, believe it or not, it can actually be something that helps us to take life more serious or less serious, depending on whatever you need right now in your life. Yeah. The unfortunate but true but kind of motivating fact that we're all totally going to die.

Oh, yeah. Spoiler alert. I love that you said draw in that. And so I wanted to ask you, I assume, did you draw all the little tidbits within the book or did you explain to someone what you wanted those to be? What was that process? Because, okay, in the. Not spoiler alert, but hey, world, there are so many fun. This is the most fun book about death that I would say exists, probably. But the little pictures, as I told you, I was laughing, like, nonstop going through the book. It was so fun to read and help bring lightness to really live our best lives, knowing that we're going to die someday.

Right.

And not going to put it off until the future. So did you draw those all yourself? In which case, like, bow down to the awesomeness.

Oh, my gosh. Well, first of all, thank you for the double compliment double decker there. I'm totally gonna. I love you for that. And I did do the drawings. I think there were 98 in total. And, you know, I have a story about drawing. I never knew I was a drawer. And I love the idea that we can find things, oh, even deep into our 40s, for example, where, oh, my gosh, we could have new hobbies or talents or interests if we just give them some space to, I don't know, grow. So that was kind of a new thing to me, not ever being a drawer or doodler. And then, let's be honest, if you're gonna talk about something as light and fluffy as death, I mean, it's a little heavy. I think that it makes it a lot easier to talk about if you can doodle the Grim Reaper, water skiing for example. So it really helps to provide levity to something that would otherwise be a little bit like a lead balloon.

Yeah, I did. Also, it's like.

And now a word from our sponsor.

Like, the grim reaper's back. Right. The. And then, you know, sharing with the. So one of my favorite ones where it was talking about. And not to jump ahead, but in the vitality of that we have within our lives and is talking about the. Like, the boiling water that takes the pot off of the rice. Right. And so it has this picture of a pot of rice, of course, but it said says, omg, there's rice everywhere. Like, anyway.

Yeah, yeah. And in fact, that's funny because that's an example of one. You know how in life, like, you go back and you could, like, never stop editing something. That's one example of an illustration that I look back, I'm like, oh, I think I could have made it giglier. But that's fine. I'm glad you liked the key pot ki. The fervor of the energy it takes to boil a pot of rice. I thought that was a pretty cool concept, too.

Yeah, yeah. Yes. And just so much fun in it. And I know for. Hopefully our audience is enjoying this side conversation before we start the conversation, but. So how did you get interested in this subject? Tell us the story of how you got interested in living our best lives knowing we're going to die someday.

Yeah, yeah. How did you become such a weirdo?

I mean, you know, your.

Your words, but, hey, you know, you know, undercurrent. No, I. I've. Other than having just a mild fascination with our ultimate demise. Because that just feels so bizarre to me. Always has this wait, like, where we all try so hard to like our lives. And I've always had. I've always worked in, like, helping professions. When I got out of college 890 years ago, you know, I worked as a personal trainer and in the fitness field. It was like, yeah, let's. And then working in leadership, but then ultimately into, you know, executive coaching. Like. Like our lives more be our best selves. All that in stark contrast to, poof, we're going to be gone. That's just weird, right? But other than that, something that struck me was the seemingly sad story of grief about my mom dying. She died when she was 58 from a heart attack. And the grief wasn't even the thing that gripped me. Yes, of course I'm sad she's gone. Love her and miss her. And yet the biggest thing that really hit me was the experience of seeing how many regrets she died with. And to be super clear, it's not the regrets of things that she did and wished that she could have done differently. It's the regrets of all the paths that she didn't take because she was a super creative soul. All these business ideas, all these plans, manuscripts she used to love to write and draw. I mean, hello, heredity here. And then she didn't submit them. She didn't try hard. She lacked the confidence. And here I was cleaning up her place after she died, like, the week after. And it was a really riveting experience to just be packing up all this stuff and then throwing it out. I mean, I kept obviously some of the hard copy manuscripts, but it was such a sad thing. And it. I don't know. You know, in life, when you see something and it startles you, it jars you, it's because you basically see it in yourself. It's like a mirror. That mirror was held up to me, and I realized that I was also susceptible to having lots of dreams, but maybe without the action. And then that just made me think, frick, like, life is short. I don't want to die at 58, obviously, but also I don't want to die at any age with dreams that are still stuffed inside me, you know? So that was a big wake up call for this whole carpe diem thing, for sure.

Yeah, yeah.

And so obviously, we all go through times of loss in that moment. And whether it's the midlife crisis, existential crisis, things, the near death experiences, the loss of a loved one, we have those moments. And some people choose to embrace that and make a lot of changes. And some have the moment and then kind of shake it off and stick with, you know, the way things have, what's comfortable. Right. As we look forward. And so how. What is it, do you think that helped to fuel you to move forward in this different way? And what have you found in your research about those who choose to embrace that best possible life? Hmm.

What a cool question. You know, I think that I needed another impetus too. Okay. So it wasn't just enough to be like, slapped by all these artifacts of, like, you know, dreams that were buried with my mom or cremated with my mom, more accurately. It was more about. I still was toiling, I was still struggling. I was working at a great job, but I was no longer interested in it. And, you know, have you ever had that where you're like, just kind of loitering part of your life because you don't know what else to do, and you're trying to make the best of it and you're pretending that it's so great. Not for sure. I mean, I was reveling in this cool job. But, you know, the thing that, you know, one of the big things was that I went back to school because I've always been interested in positive psychology. And then when I was there, it was when I got deep into researching this exact topic of what's called memento mori is the old Latin phrase that translates to remember we must die. And for me it was like this eye opening about, okay, so this is legit. It's more than a feeling I have that I was afraid to actually bring to light. It wasn't, you know, my, this motivation I had to say, everybody, wake up. Life short, let's get on with it. I mean, I could scream that from a mountaintop and a few people might listen, but I felt more, I don't know, confident, validated doing it. If I could say, like, looky here what research has been saying. And so that was part of the boost I needed. So that was another, like, major impetus point for me. And then to your real question about, like, so some of us need to maybe take another step forward in order to, whether it's gain confidence, whether you're purchasing it or studying it or both, that can be key. But I think the difference between those of us who make the choice to go for it and I, you know, delineated in the book and we've all heard the idea about playing to win versus playing not to lose, you know, and I, I think that acknowledging for all of us, like, there is going to be fear along the way if it means making a change, even if it's a yearning, that is just so important. It's like, oh, I've always wanted to start that business, you know, or I've always wanted to write that book, or I've always wanted to move to Portland, or I've always, you know, all the little things that people, we have dreams and desires and hopes and some are small and some are big and we adapt so fast. This is just, you know, part of our psychology is we will rationalize where we're at. We'll make excuses. We will say things like, I'm going to do it later. Oh, you know what? I'm going to start that business when, when, when work's quieter or, oh, you know, I'm going to go and do that really cool trip when I retire, you know, or Portland, you know what, Portland can wait till later. You Know, till, you know, my last five years of my career and all we're doing is putting life off. And so the difference, sometimes it is just a life event that will spur us, you know, a death of a loved one, of near death experience of our own. Studying something in school, quite frankly, I think it comes down to a lot of times working with a coach. I used to coach people one on one and that was a lot of it was just getting people comfortable with getting up the gumption to go for it. But it's overcoming that inertia about playing not to lose, you know, being safe, being secure. Because it's so easy to be in a comfort zone. I mean, I love my comfort zone, don't you?

Yeah, it's cozy in there, you know. Well, what I really like about in the book, it's very clear that as you've said here, you, you've worked with a lot of people on this and so understanding these steps, you know, as you go through the chapters and being able to do your own, you know, go from pre mortem to post mortem, quite literally as you're going through those chapters and understanding, like you said, regrets and where you are now so you can understand where you want to be and to know that your vitality and what's the best life for me is not necessarily the same as what it is for anybody else. And I may need to dance more and someone else needs to dance less and I want to work more and they want to work less or whatever right there, all these, what it is for you and finding what would be really delightful and bringing these moments of awesomeness is, you know, little bit at a time sort of piece. But know what you're trying to, what you're trying to do and what you need to do more of and less of. Can you elaborate on.

Yeah, I. Well, first of all, I want to comment on something about whatever, wherever we land individually on, like what it is that lights us up. I love the fact you pointed out that it's totally relative. So. Because I get a little bit worried that, you know, in my language about talking about living an astonishingly alive life, I want us to go for whatever that looks like, but it doesn't mean that there's a prescription or like a. Well, here's how it has to go. You know, it has to be super flashy and you know, be ready for social media pictures and so on. I think that, you know, each one of us has our own threshold for social endeavors, for excitement, for spontaneity, for how Much work we want to do. And so, oh my goodness, you know, your Saturday night that looks amazing to you, could be different from someone else's and you're not right or wrong, and they're not right or wrong. You do you right. So that's number one out of the gates. And then you've just highlighted, I think, this idea about, like getting in touch with what it, what makes us tick. And this really is like the pre mortem that you alluded to. It's like this, wait, where am I? What. Where am I at with my life right now and what would I maybe like it to look like? And most of us are not in touch with that. And the reason why is because we're so freaking busy. You know, we got all these things going on and we're not stopping to be introspective. And it is, you know, it's an opportunity for us to just do a pause and say, okay, wait, what if I did take stock of my life? Am I going through the motions? Because most of us are. We've made a very efficient routine out of a lot of our lives just to keep back the insanity. So what if I did stop and say, wait, like, for example, what if I did chapter one, the pre mortem, and say, what are all the things about my life? What's really amazing? Where are the areas where I call them, like diagnosing the dead zones? Where are the parts of my life that have maybe flatlined? Like, it could be your love life, it could be your, you know, your hobbies that you lost track of, or it could be your career. I mean, let's just call a spade a spade, wherever it is in your life, I think that first it's the awareness, and then you move into intention. Okay, so in light of all that, what's working, what's not, what would you like, what would make you feel alive? What would make you feel like if you got to the end, you didn't feel like you maybe squandered your time or like you got to the end and you felt proud of how you lived your life again, not for other people. Not because we're going to get judged necessarily, depending what you believe, Judgment day. But let's just say by other people on earth, would you feel like you did it justice? And so that's the opening, the eye opening about where am I and where do I want to. What I like, like you said, what do you want more of or less of? Does it involve a big scary dream? Okay, we can handle that. Does it Involve just a bunch of little things to make you feel more like, oh, my gosh, I used to read more. Why am I not reading more? Okay, I'm gonna go buy a book. Like, that's a subtle thing that can make a difference in your life. Starting this afternoon.

Yeah. I love all the examples throughout the book as well, from not just you and the research, but from actual people, from workshops or from past clients of yours. The quote of the. In various areas, them saying, like. Like you said, I'm gonna read more. And you have just, like, long lists of them to where as it's making a point and it's saying you can figure out what fits for you. But you get to see, like, this person is going to take a cooking class, and this person said, I'm never cooking again. I'm gonna order stuff in. And this person says that they. They're going to do this and I'm going to do that, and I want to travel and I want to do. And you can just get the inspiration from it and see how vast those options are.

Yeah. Thanks for noticing that I'm the type of person that needs examples. You know, I could learn a concept, barely. Then I'll be like, okay, what do you mean? Like, what's an example? And then if you, you know, this is where I see this, too, in workshops where we'll talk about, for example, regrets that someone might have. And that seems like a bit of a downer conversation, but trust me, we flip it fast, you know, or, like, bucket list items. Let's just take it lighter for a sec. When someone articulates a thing, they're like, oh, yeah, I forgot that I wanted to learn how to do the tango too, you know? Or, oh, yes, that's right. I forgot I wanted to start a nonprofit to help the ferrets. Or I wanted, like. Like, whatever. Like, we. We really do need inspiration. To use the word you. You used. We need that. And so, yeah, no shortage of other people's success stories of cool stuff they've done to light their life up. Again, cool, not necessarily meaning grandiose. It could be just the sweetest and simplest thing, which often, and I think delightfully, it usually is.

Right? And, you know, whether it's the pottery and, like, it doesn't have to. You're not. You're not becoming a potter.

Right.

It's like, it doesn't have to be. And maybe you are. Right. But if it's just like, I want to do something creative and I'm going to try pottery and, hey, that sucks and I'm not good at that thing, so I don't want to do that anymore. And now I'm going to try something else, but I at least did it, you know, and I'm moving on to the next thing totally.

And then, you know, even like taking this into the different domains of life, like, you know, looking at it in your work life right now, there could be, and there are a plethora of examples of ways that we could just breathe more life into our current careers, you know, and I'm a, I'm a, I'm a big fan of leaving a dead end job if it's vacuuming the soul out of you, of course. But I think for most of us there are so many opportunities to breathe more life back into what we're already doing. And we've just maybe quite frankly, like sometimes we feel like I've lost the spark. Well, you could relight it. Maybe there are ways you could start a new project or like remember how you wanted to do that strategy. What about if we did that and all of a sudden you're challenged again because you get to kickstart something or open up a new division in the east coast or you get to maybe design a new training manual or you get to do a lunch and learn for your team where you put yourself out on a limb and actually present something or go to a conference and learn something. So the ideas even nestled within our work lives I think are endless and, and really cool. There's an opportunity there to, to add more life to that part of life too.

Definitely. As I was reading through the book and the.

It's.

It's interesting how I think, you know, thanks to publishing and how things work or whatever is coming to me at certain times and the ebbs and flow of things. Right. Is so recent conversation on is your work worth it? Fantastic book. Has a lot of interesting stuff in it. And also just recently talked with Carrie, Carrie Leibowitz about How to Winter which was talking about awe and looking at the awe research and how we're thinking about our approach to winter can be so different and like and our life winter we're talking about too. So very lots of overlap. That should check out on those two and our audience as well. In the points about business. One of the things that you had said that I thought was really valuable for that people can maybe be one of those jarring moments for them that ties into something we see at work all the time was the NPS tie in. And this is another of the moments that I laughed aloud while I was listening to the book. But where you say, like, if you were to take the NPS of your life, like all the, all the stuff and the minutia, would you recommend it to someone else? You can elaborate on it, of course, but I enjoyed that very much.

Oh, I'm so glad you did. Yes. You know, whether we were working in an organization that uses. Net promoter score or we've all just filled out one of those freaking surveys, right? Like, how likely are you to recommend this to a friend or family member or whatever, you know, and would you recommend it like that. That being the core question. And you know, scale of 1 to 10. And then of course I like bastardize everything to how do we make this work? Like within looking at the scope of our lives. And I have found this to be such an interesting conversation because it will again come up in some of the groups that I work with where we'll do it as like, I don't know, like a team exercise. But even individually, if you look, and I like to say start from 18 because everything before 18, well, that was all just a crap show anyways, probably so at 18. And plus, like that's the life. You got to have more agency to design between that moment and now. If your life was over and it was a package on the shelf, would you say to a friend or someone you didn't know, oh my gosh, you should totally live this life? And I don't know, I mean, I'm even right now having a bit of a recoiling moment of wait a minute. And I mean, the aim here of course is not because like every day needs to be perfect, but it's like in totality. And it leads us towards this idea too, which is about again, I have to take everything to the end to make an ultimate point. Like if you were dying tonight, sorry about your luck, but it's come. Would you feel that sense of like, I'm good to go or would there be that wild eyed grasping at, oh, I just I so many more things. And by the way, this isn't to be confused with ambition because many of us can still have lots of dreams and goals that, well, if you're dying now, you wouldn't have time to execute. And let's be honest, your to do list will never get fully crossed off anyways. But in the grand scheme of things, when we have that inner knowing of, you know what, I showed up, I did accomplish great things that I said I wanted to do, even if it was the silly stuff like eating a deep fried Twinkie at the fair or you know, launching my Etsy business or doing these things. Like I, I, I participated in my life and I didn't get it all. And I didn't wasn't successful at all. This isn't a measure of success right now, but did I kill it? And that feeling versus that feeling of I didn't really show up. You know, like I'm aware that maybe I did squander a lot more time than is, you know, acceptably normal. That's the difference that we're looking forward back to that mps, like, would you recommend it or not? And the cool part, of course, the moral of the story, like, let's not leave it here as a bit of a oh, great, thanks moment. It's that, well, the good news is, last we checked, you're still listening to this podcast. You're not dead yet. And so you do have a chance to take a different course this afternoon. You know, maybe it's literally a course, like an online course, or maybe it's like change your life in some small way or giant way, but we still have an opportunity to live. Like we mean it because we're still here. Like, we get to be here, we get to do it. So excited for our lives, right? All worked up over here.

No, I. So I already told you, we are the most kindred of spirits in all the ways. Like, I see so much of the way that I think and talk and what I'm hearing in you as well. And so I think the audience will resonate with you and what you're saying very much. Because it's a lot like the things that I talk about and how I approach stuff as far as the motivational side of that, where we're saying in the, like, it's not too late sort of deal. It's really funny that, like I said, I've been reading books on similar topics recently and so the Alfred Nobel, that particular story has, has come up twice. I hadn't actually heard it recently enough that I had remembered this, but specifically what you talk about has come up twice in the last month, I think. And I thought that is so interesting in the not too late to change your legacy and what you're remembered for. Can you share this, this story?

Oh, sure. Happy to. I'll try and make this nice and succinct. So Alfred Nobel wakes up one day and reads the paper and he sees his obituary on the front page of the paper and it was a misprint because the printer in his town meant to print it about his brother who unfortunately just died, Ludwig. And. But they apparently have obituaries at the ready for famous people and they, oops, printed the wrong brother's obituary. The clincher though for Alfred was not that it was just, ooh, darn it looks like I died and I didn't. But it was that it was a really damning obituary. It was that it said, the merchant of death is dead. And at that time, Alfred Nobel was making missiles, bullets, like warfare artillery. And it didn't make him super popular amongst some crowds. And it woke him up and made him realize, wait a minute, if I was to have died today or the other day like my brother did, this is what they would say about me. And it gave him a whole new light about the life he had been living. And he course corrected his life and he changed his life and started, as we know, the Nobel Prizes as of today and invested his hard earned artillery money in other endeavors. And so that was that. Like you said, the legacy adjustment. That's pretty powerful.

Yeah.

And whenever we hear the name Nobel, like nobody thinks about or most don't even know where the Nobel Prize funds, like how that started. Right. And the, the shift and everything. And so to say, you know, in that moment, like you said, it's at that if you were to put your life on the shelf right now, like you said, from 18 to today, like that's fine. Where are we? And if we say, okay, now this is a new box that we're gonna put up on the shelf from this moment.

Right.

What are we gonna craft to put out there?

Oh, that's beautiful. I like that. My mind would definitely be a really colorful cereal box.

I love it. It's like life tricks. So as we. You're working with people here, so let's, let's talk. I know you talked about regret and, and in the book you talk about pregrets, which I think is very valuable. Can you share a little bit about that for people?

Oh, I just, I just had to take a deep breath in because I'm so excited by them. And we've hinted at it, which is cool. So let's just do an imaginary exercise. We've all done this idea before, right? Okay, Back to the deathbed. You're on your deathbed. Okay. You're medicated, so you're feeling good, but you're looking back on your life and you are celebrating all the cool things you did. And, and yet most of us are probably going to have moments, those pangs of regrets about maybe the paths we didn't take. And I just want to take a quick second to dismiss for a moment the kind of regrets called regrets of commission. And these are the regrets about activities, things we did and regret doing. Those actually are. Research shows that they don't tend to bother us too much at the end, and we don't want to waste our time on them right now because it's, quite frankly, water under the bridge. Move on. We're talking right now about the pangs you might feel on your medicated deathbed, which are of the regrets of omission type. And these are those dreams that you've had for yourself of any size that you didn't take action on for whatever reason. And sometimes they're little things like, oh, man, you know, I never made it to that, you know, all you can eat restaurant in town that I was always curious about. That may not really bother you that much at the end, but sometimes some of these regrets might be bigger, you know, like, typically they revolve around, like, family stuff. Like, oh, man, I wished I'd spent more time with my dad, or I wished I was more present with my kids. Or it could be about a big goal in life. Like, you know, I always wanted to run that marathon, but I just never made the time. I was never brave enough, you know, or we keep talking about, like, a business, but it could be, like, applying for the bigger job. I wish I was bolder. I wish I had more confidence and just said, go for it. Put my name in the ring, face rejection and, you know, in it boldly. Or it could be the, you know, activities, small. You know, I wish I had taken that cruise that I always talked about with my family or taking the kids to Disney, whatever it was. I don't. It doesn't matter what it is. There's zero judgment. But what would be the things that you might give yourself those feelings of? Oh, and that's your opportunity. Write every single one down. No bullet point is too measly and. Or grandiose. It's put it all down. And then you get to be the one to sift and sort when you look at it on the page. I do this all the time with people. And like, yeah, now that I write enough, I look at it, I don't really think I want to learn Spanish anymore. I'm fine. I'm going to focus on these three.

Well, cool.

Those are the three. So whatever it is that you are feeling those fizzly, sizzly feelings about, those are your opportunities, and those are the pre grads, because they are, they're not quite regrets yet because you're still alive and kicking and you have a chance to actually take action on them if you want.

Starting today, definitely. When I've talked about the Dunning Kruger effect, which is one of my very favorite things in the confidence and competence piece, for those who aren't familiar or don't remember right off the bat because it doesn't have the greatest of names, that is very intuitive, right? But when we don't know about something, when we're under competent, we tend to be very confident that exceeds where we should be, which they call the peak of Mount Stupid. And then at some point you get some more competence. You realize how little you actually know, and then your confidence goes way down into this valley of despair. And then you can decide if you want to go up the slope of enlightenment to increase that, you know, confidence and competence sort of together as you grow up. And so when I talk about this though, it's that, you know, you can choose to say, like, there are some things you realize, wow, there's a lot I did not know there and I was way overly confident. And like, I'm cool with that, right? I'm okay to just not be really weirdly condescending to the marketing team because I realize actually, like, that's really hard, right? Or I'm not going to like, look at the thing and say, oh, I could do that, right? You'd say, oh, I actually can't. I, you know, hats off to you, and I'm not going to do that. Or you're going to really invest in those things that matter. And like you said, you can't do all the things all at once. So if you're going to prioritize and.

Do something, because when we try to.

Do everything, we can just multitask and bike shed till the end of time and never actually make progress. So we're, like I said, kindred and talking about the one thing. Pick. Pick one. One and just go with it. I'd love for the audience to hear your thoughts on, on this approach.

Oh, I mean, I look at you and I'm hearing you and I know that this is part of your ethos. And I'm looking around like, how could there be any other way? Like, we can only be. We can only, like, just like in our brains, we can only be thinking one thought at a time. So if, I mean, you might as well make it a generally okay one rather than a crappy one, because that's your mood. Why not? Also with your actions, you could only be doing one task or one thing at a time. And so that's where we need to just get a little bit judicious. And I recognize the tension. Let me just be the first to call it out, right? I'm the one creating perhaps some existential despair. Your time is limited. Like I get everybody to count how many Mondays we have left. You know, I have 1,810 as of this week. And that can create those feelings of scarcity, which is actually, the research is called temporal scarcity. It's on purpose, it's to help us value, oh my gosh, this is limited time only. And in that limitation is then the tension about, well, I want to do all these things that I can't possibly fit it. And yeah, you're probably right. And let's all acknowledge together that that's crappy, that you'll never get to all of the resorts or beaches you want to get to. But like, okay, so which ones are more important? Same thing with all of the dreams, all of the things, all the neat things you want to do in your job or work or beyond. So this is now this special act of, okay, like prioritizing. And this is the gift that people who've had near death experiences or even just brushes with death, maybe it's not that perilous, but many people have had where they, maybe they've seen the edge in a way, or they're now in remission, for example, from a diagnosis, and they're like, oh, I see. Now I know that this is a temporary existence and my priorities are so sharp right now, and all that other stuff, the extraneous stuff just sort of falls by the wayside and I get to laser in. So the lasering in in my mind, like, I'm often trying to get myself into a little bit more of a sense of urgency and intensity again, like without the panic. I don't need it to be laced with anxiety. But it's just about a go, go, go, honey, because, like, you don't drag your feet because, like, you may not even have next week, which again, sounds kind of anxiety inducing. But, you know, but the idea, like if you prioritized it and if you've said it's a priority for you to take, you know, to plan your vacations and maybe make that a vacation that you actually want to do and book that trip, then your next action is, okay, so then this afternoon, I guess I'm going to look at flights and I'm going to book the trip, that's an action. And let me tell you, I love the research also that even sometimes taking the initiative to book something to take, even a planning and an administrative action can be incredibly rewarding for us. So for example, if you're trying to, oh, I think I really want to get fit and it's like go online and book the tennis lesson or the training session or whatever it is, or oh, I really want to go and apply for that program that you've been wondering about. You know, go and like even just one small step to take the gesture is actually really powerful. But you can only make it one thing and that's the power of the list that you're allowed to reorganize and. But you can only really ever do one thing at a time. And if your life is short and you've made that sense of heightened priority, then now things do get clearer.

Yeah, definitely. And I know in the, in the book you're talking about also in the, where you know, the anticipation and you know, for audience knowing we got that dopamine coming when we were getting excited for the things like you're saying, even it's having the cake that's in the fridge for tomorrow versus like finish frosting and then eat it, I thought was a very apt explanation of it. But when you know, it's there and tomorrow we get to have this thing or you know, as we think about pain of paying and if we prepay for the vacation that's going to be in six months and we're getting to plan for it and we're excited to go take it and we're, you know, living in that future state now and getting all those pieces of joy and maybe we're learning French before we're gonna go or whatever it is, right? So getting to have the, the joy that comes from that thing that we.

Maybe are going to choose to do.

You know, in studying positive psychology, one of the things that stands out to me as the lowest hanging fruit towards, well, being towards just frickin happiness is that pre savoring it's the anticipation and it is that. You know, my recommendation again, as you've read in the book, is to have something in your calendar a week, a month and a year in advance that you can look forward to. And they don't have to be big things like usually the thing within a week is like, oh, I'm just so excited to go for that brunch or to order in Thai food on Saturday night or whatever. I mean that's usually my answer or it's always food. But they don't need to be things that cost a ton of money or take a ton of time. Because oftentimes again, back to like us busy professionals, this isn't necessarily about having to take a sabbatical to enjoy your life. I mean, don't not do that if you can make that happen. Same thing about taking off. This isn't about loads of time that we feel like that the ultimate time scarcity is the issue. Well, like we're talking about the macro time scarcity here. But anyways it can be stuff that you're, that you're fitting into your currently existing day, your busy, busy day. And I'll just give you a quick example. There was a woman I know who was working on a Saturday morning. Okay. This isn't unheard of for most of us. We spend time working on quote unquote off hours. What are even off hours anymore? And she's like, I was sat outside and I brought out my cup of tea and I sat in my backyard and I don't normally do that. She said, normally I just kind of get right into the thick things. But she said, I thought to myself, it's a nice morning, I'm going to go sit outside. She brought her stuff out, she had to dust off the chairs because she wasn't usually sitting on them. Brought her laptop on her lap and worked while she was just appreciating the sun on her face and the birds in the sky and the clouds. And she just felt like it was a completely different and an important nature filled experience for her. Now it cost no money, it took no more time. She was already going to be working and she still got work done. And so this is actually the best compromise ever. And I'm not proposing here that we all just find, find ways to work while on our vacations or whatnot. But I'm saying it's just designing your moments so that they can feel a little more alive rather than maybe the usual ho hum routine that we've gotten ourselves into.

Definitely. And I, I really appreciate it. So you have a whole chapter about habits in the book, which we talk about habits all the time. And knowing that those the habit status quo familiarity bias problem that gets us stuck in the way we always do things to where, you know, habits versus routines versus rituals, which you know, talk about on the show quite a bit too. So the but like you're saying, and I definitely agree too, is we know that you can't change, you shouldn't try to change Everything all at once, because that is a recipe for failure. Right? But you know, the, if it's saying, you know, the date night is important, but maybe we go at a different time or we go to a different restaurant or we do something a different day of the week or you know, that you can find the thing you want to preserve and then find ways to be shaking it up.

Yes, that's the perfect sum up about shaking it up. And I love too how you clarified that because I will talk about how, ah, habits and routines. It's a kiss of death. And I don't know why I said it in that voice, but whatever. And, and they really can be. But we're not, I'm not advocating that we blow it all up and like, well, now I don't have a gym routine and now I don't have a date routine, are we ever going to date again? Or now we don't even have a food, are we going to have dinner ever? Oh, that already sounds stressful. So yeah, I think it's just tweaking one, maybe one thing a week where you're like, yeah, I do the same thing for breakfast every day except for today. I'm going to shake it up. And back to your date night idea. You just made me think when you were going through the examples of like, different, different restaurant or whatever. You know, I think that there's an implied pressure also that things have to back to the idea about things being astonishingly alive and big. And I think that most of us are at an age literally, unless you know, you're 19 and in which case, rock on. But I think, you know, we've had some experience to know that we can have an interspersed life with really bigger, bigger things that will carry us through. So I still advocate for like change the date night. But maybe it's once a quarter that you do something kind of, kind of big and exciting, you know, so. Or it could be a family day. It could be anything that, you know, I refer to it as like giving a crap, only with different language. And I would say like, but I don't think it's enough to give one crap. We have to give two craps about our lives. And that means sometimes that it's like making the effort. Maybe it means that instead of the usual, this is what we do as a family on a Saturday, like, maybe you actually do that really great scavenger hunt around your part of town and that'll be the thing that you'll be like, okay, I gotta catch my breath because I'M not doing that again for a long time. And that's cool. Like, don't ever do it again. But you remember that time we did scavenger hunt, and mom did that thing and she hid that weird thing in the tree? I don't know. Or you do the date. That's like, kind of epic. And you're like, you didn't tell your partner, but, like, pack your bags and we're gonna take a flight overnight.

And.

And again, I'm expanding these things right now. And some people's hearts might be beating faster. Like, well, I can't fit that into my life. And that's so. Okay. But what if that just meant for you that like, every couple years you just did something kind of wild, that you'll. You ride, you. You ride the wave of the memory of it, and that can be great. And then you get back to the regular thing with a little bit of the gentler interspersements. Like, instead of pizza, we're gonna do this new vegan restaurant in town. Cause that's gonna be different. And we're not even vegan, but you get the idea.

Yeah, definitely. And I really loved. You had some really great ideas, too, about the finding those little moments of celebration, like it's the 333rd day of the year, or that, you know, it's the talk, like a pirate day. It's donut day. You know, you can find whatever it is that you want. But being able to be, like, just find those moments of fun, especially when you have kids. Right? So we remember, because I think for most people with family stuff, you're trying to bring those experiences in. And we remember, you know, that one time that we had ice cream for dinner or the. The really cool, fun thing. I think you even said it like, fondue for breakfast or something. Like, you go the other way. Those little things that can be. Be memorable. And instead of, you know, we keep some traditions that matter at holidays. But this year let's do, like, let's just do the, like, draw names and people give the gifts, or we're gonna give experiences and we're gonna, like, just go ice skating instead. Or, you know, the. There's so many little things you can do that I think can help make.

Everything just a smidge better.

Right? Like, why not?

You're right. And I think immediately what I want to just normalize the fact that. And it may be a bit of a disaster, which, if you choose to see it this way, it's all just fodder for laughter as the Family or as the couple or as friends. Right? So sometimes we like our routines because they keep us safe. It's like, I always order that particular omelette because I know I like it. Awesome. And if you do order, say, for example, I don't know, the chicken and waffles, like, you're afraid you might not like it, and. Yeah, that's possible, but, you know, you might love it, which is hilarious, because that might become your new favorite thing that you overkill. But if you don't like it and. Or if you plan the trip that is different from what you would normally do or you do spice it up in a way that you're like, I do not like this spice. This is not a validation that. There. That is why I should never change anything ever again. It's all. For me. It's all content for laughs. Or it's all content for. Again, a silly memory of like, yeah. Remember when you changed the holiday dinner and you decided to make that, you know, giant, I don't know, taco casserole? That was a bust. It's all just funny, you know? So I think if you keep the attitude, like, it's an adventure, give it a go. If it sucks, you'll just laugh.

It's very Bridget Jones diary, right? Where she slaves over the dinner, or, sorry, she spends so much time on her dinner making stuff all day, and then ends up with. They say it's blue soup, marmalade, and omelet or something that she thinks she's making this big, amazing thing. And it did not come out well, but it was fun. And the. It was about the. The laughter and getting together and trying something new and realizing, you know, Bridget's not a good cook, and that's okay, but she tried.

Exactly. And in the story of your life that someone might tell about you or that you might remember or even just this week, you get to look, shake your head and say, it's all. Just chalk it up to the experience of being alive.

Ah, perfect. Well, if you were gonna put a bow on this. As for somebody feeling that spark of inspiration of a First thing they should do or a thought to keep in mind or something as they. They go forth into their fantastic life. What's. What's the best advice you'd give?

Oh, great. Cue. My first thought is to count your Mondays. How many you have left, not how many you've lived. I mean, do that math, too. That's impressive. Look at you. You've lived that long. Great. But how about how many you have left? I Have a. Like, there's a free calculator on my website, on the resource page, you can calculate how many Mondays you have left. So if you don't want to do mortality math, good for you. It's done for you. But that. Let that be the eye opener. That. Whoa, The Grim Reaper's out there. He's at a nice, peaceful distance for now. And I'm going to use this to my advantage. Not to instill an existential crisis, but to instill the motivation to get on with it. Because we're not getting any younger and life's just too short to squander it. Let's do it.

Yes, embrace and count those Mondays. I think it's such that that time scarcity is so valuable for people. I love that that is where you ended on that. So for everybody who is now ready to go check out that calculator. And of course they're going to get their copy of you Only Die Once.

We'll have a link in the show notes.

But where should they go to learn more, to connect, to follow you? What's their best next step?

Where to go? Well, you can go to 4000mondays.com or Instagram is at 4000mondays. And lots of stuff, lots of articles, lots of hopeful inspiration in a, you know, just gently aggressive way to live.

Love it. Well, we will of course link to that in the show notes as well. And thank you again, Jodi, for joining me. It was really delightful to chat with you today.

Thank you. Being here with you, Melina, is time well spent.

Yes.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you again to Jody Wellman for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today's conversation? For me, I just have to reiterate again that this book is hilarious. It's so fun and has fantastic pictures throughout. Jody really shows how you can love every moment and do things your own.

Way if you want to, and that.

People can love you for it. You don't have to go with the hurt and do what everyone else does. You can talk about how you have a crush on the Grim Reaper and make silly, witty jokes as much as you want it. Even when you're sharing academic research and lots of amazing insights, you can make it fun.

And I love that.

You may or may not know, since I don't know exactly when you'll listen to this, but this episode is coming out as the first new episode of 2025. Being the first episode of the year, it really felt like the perfect time to share something that helps us to look at the opportunities in front of us to shake things up. If you want to change your routine to have a fantastic Friday and a great new week to take a little time for you, whatever that may mean, what should you stop doing? What can you start doing? What is something you used to love but hardly ever do anymore?

Can you bring it back?

Don't wait until next week or next month or next year. Think of all those wasted Mondays. While you're holding off for the perfect time, do a little bit. Do something now. Make the most of every Monday and every other day so you can make it to the end with no regrets. And if you haven't already listened to the Last Episode 458 with Dan Pink on the Power of Regret, I definitely recommend you check that one out. You will love it and learn a lot. Whatever you decide to do or not, will you come share it with Jody and I on social media? We we would love to hear about it and celebrate with you. You'll find me as the Brainy Biz biz pretty much everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. There are links to connect with me and Jody in the show notes for the episode, as well as links for my top related past episodes and books, including you Only Die Once. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 459 and thank you again to Jody Wellman for joining me on the show today. It was a delight to chat with and learn from you. Join me Tuesday for another brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then. Thanks again for listening and learning with me and remember to be thoughtful.

Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.