Are You Wasting Your Life? Hear This Urgent Message

You wrote a book. You only die once. I'm like, my God, you're right.

I've always been interested in the notion of the fact that we're temporary. Oh, my gosh. Life is short. I do not want to die stuffed full of dormant dreams and intentions. Wake up. Wake up. We don't have as much time as we might hope we have. I'm the one that talks about death. Like, that's the biggest downer of all. There's a bit of an abrupt poke in the ribs. Sorry, but you are going to die.

I start to panic. I start to think about death.

Here's what you're signing up for, honey bunny. Let's buckle up together.

But I had, like, a date with death.

Now I get to live. We take life for granted. I talk about living an astonishingly alive life. Gratitude does create a better existence. Befriend the reaper. That is a little bit of the secret to living a livelier life.

4,000 Mondays. What does that mean? Well, when we look at the average lifespan, we've got 4,000 weeks of life. Not a lot, when you think about it. Jodi Wellman is the founder of 4000 Mondays and she's the author of you Only Die Once. You need to listen to this episode. It's really incredible. She has her master's in positive psychology. She's incredibly well versed, very well studied, and her book is an absolute game changer. If you want to lead your life on purpose, please sit back and enjoy the show. A very special thanks to NZ Mortgages for sponsoring this episode of the Lead On Purpose podcast. You can check them out at nzmortgages.co nz. Jody, a huge welcome to the Lead On Purpose podcast.

Oh, thank you so much for being here. I am downright giddy to be here.

Oh, I'm so excited because you've wrote a book that I'm like, I just need to read that over and over and over again. And I know thousands of humans are going to be getting their hands on this right now, and they already have. And the reason you're on the show is because I want my listeners to hear about this first. They need to hear it. So we've got listeners in New Zealand, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, Ireland, all over. But they need to understand your company and your book, because the name of your company stood out to me. 4,000 Mondays, I'm like, my God, you're right. Like, on average, we've got about 4,000 weeks of life. So 4,000 Mondays, let's make the most of Each one of those. Oh, and then your book title, you only live once or sorry, you only die once, but you only live once too. But you only die once. Wow, like, that really stood out for me. So can we start with that? What do you mean by you only die once? Hey.

Okay, I'm happy to explain it, but I also just have to say thank you for your endorsements. I think I need you as like, a second agent because you're just lovely. Thank you for liking women. I mean, you know, great, great minds think alike here. So obviously we're kindred spirits and.

You know, we're used to the language of yolo, right? Like, you only live once and the ethos behind that. I mean, like, thumbs up. Good stuff. And where I like to play is in this area that everybody's afraid of, you know, talking about our mortality, but not just to be a weirdo, morbid person. Maybe there's not two, but no, it's about embracing the inevitability of life, that is death, in order to use that as a motivator. And so this book really is all about how the grim reaper can be, like, our best freaking buddy ever in order to actually wake up and live with more intention. So that's why it's you only die once. And then the subtitles, like, how to make it to the end with no regrets. Or, you know, at least as few as possible. So you summarized it perfectly. It's like, life is short. So how do we make the most of it? Of over 4,000 Mondays? That's the gist of it. Yeah.

I love it. And more of us need to hear this. So when I'm working with clients or standing on stages or working with teams, I get to meet individuals and talk about their challenges. And often it's like, hey, I'm not motivated. Hey, I'm bored at this place. Hey, I'm just kind of calling it in and ticking the box and I'm like pulling my hair out going, wow. If someone could remind you this is a one shot deal, like your life, you don't get to do this thing again. Your book is literally the reminder, the one shot deal.

I got to write that down. I mean, depending some people, if you believe in reincarnation, that's great too. But we get a shot at this life once, so why don't we make the most of this life regardless of what your beliefs are. Can I just say, James, you just mentioned this idea of boredom and you reminded me of. Well, there's a whole chapter about how habits can Just kind of turn us into highly functioning zombies. And how we can become bored. And there's a line I might butcher, but work with me. The thing about boredom that gets me is that it's a reflection of that we've lost.

Our perspective on our impermanence. Like, you know, I look at it like you go to the extreme. You know, if you knew you had a month left to live, there would be not a moment that you would ever call yourself bored, right? Could you be out there stuffing all the life in you could stuff. And so when we lose the perspective, it's the luxury of somebody who has lost perspective that, oh my gosh, my time's ticked. I'm lucky to be here. Then we just kind of lull ourselves into a slumber. And trust me, I do this too. I don't pretend that I'm above it all. I quite frankly wrote the book for myself.

All great authors do, right?

Oh, I'm my first patient, my first client.

I love that. And it's like we need the reminder. And often we do forget that it's a one shot deal. What was it for you? Why did you write this book? Why did you need to write it for yourself? What was happening in your life where you're like, actually my whole business and movement and the book I'm writing, this is for me. What happened?

Well, a couple things and I'll start kind of in sequence order. I mean, I've always been interested in the notion of the fact that we're temporary, just the bizarro nature of that. But that aside, I've collected all the quotes over the years as an adolescent about death and life in Seneca. And obviously the philosophers have had lots to say on this matter over time and I've gobbled it all up. So it was fertile ground for this notion of the fact that life's short, make the most of it. A memento mori idea, right? Which is that Latin phrase for remember we must die. And then my mom went and died when she was in her late 50s. And.

The striking thing for me was my observation that she died with a bunch of regrets. And just be clear here, the language I use when I talk about regrets aren't regrets of commission like the mistakes we made, the things we wish we didn't do. Eh, I don't care about that. It's the regrets of what are called omission, like the regrets of the dreams and hopes and desires we have for ourselves that we just don't take action on for a bunch of reasons which we can Unpack. And you see this with clients all the time. I mean, we know the reasons why that woke me up because she had all these plans and hopes, but didn't have the confidence to execute on them. And it grabbed me because admittedly, you know, the things that bother you and scare you are things that you kind of see in yourself. I was like, oh, I am a prime candidate. Hopefully not to die early. That, you know, that would very much suck. But that aside, I'm a prime candidate to be living my precious life, playing it small, you know, rather than being willing to take some risks and fail and all the things that we wouldn't normally sign up for. So that was a wake up call for me is like, oh, my gosh, life is short. I do not want to die stuffed full of dormant dreams and intentions. That was a real, like. It shook me, you know, almost violently. And then as I was changing my career and getting into executive work and coaching and leadership and stuff, I fell in love with positive psychology. So I studied it at the University of Pennsylvania. I did my master's program there four years ago. And I gave myself the ticket and permission to say, I'm going to make Memento Mori my thesis. And so I did that. And then it's. You never have moments in life where God wasn't looking for a life change. Life was fine. It was good. I mean, you know, that's parlance for that's not good enough. But anyway, it was fine. And yet I. I opened my eyes up to this topic of Memento Mori. I saw the research behind it, which gave me confidence that, oh, this is credible. And I just had to come back home on the ranch and make that my business. So I shifted my entire business from traditional leadership development into now getting on stages and writing books and talking about this idea about, wake up, wake up. We don't have as much time as we might hope we have. So that was the path, you know, that's incredible.

Honestly, it's really inspiring. And I know there's going to be a listener that needs to hear what you just said. And what I heard was, your days are your life in miniature. Like, the things you're doing day in, day out are actually your entire life, but in miniature. So if you're avoiding the thing or sticking to the job that you actually hit or, you know, saying no to healthy foods and exercise, well, actually, that's just a reflection of your entire life. But it's well within our capability to become more aware and heighten our awareness and realize we're going to die. What do we want to do with this precious little blink that we've got to live? Yeah.

I love what you said about our days being a reflection of our life. And I have a similar thought that our lives really are just collections of little, tiny. We could even just get really minute, like 10, 20 minute increments stitched together. And so when I talk and, you know, the language I use, I realize can sometimes be a little bit maybe jarring. So I talk about living an astonishingly alive life. And I think immediately for some of us, we go to that idea that Astonishingly Alive needs to be fancy and it needs to be frivolous and it needs to look good on Instagram or all the, you know, and no, no, no. Oh, my goodness. You know, it is about making choices at all these little intervals in our day. You know, like even about your choice for breakfast or just the little thing you're going to do while you're on a quick break in the day or the plan you might have for yourself on Sunday morning that you're really looking forward to because that's going to help you savor your life. That's not grand. Right? Like, that's not necessarily. Doesn't cost much, if anything. And it. And so these are the things where I just think it's being. It's waking up to even just these little installments that can make life just better in small doses. And I feel like that's so much more accessible than thinking that I have to plan a cruise in the Mediterranean. I mean, I want that also, but usually it's not that accessible. Right. Let's do both.

I love that and I love the wording astonishingly alive. Now I want to just sit with that for a minute. And after this, I want to talk about your master's in positive psychology. But I think about words a lot, so. Hey, James, did you watch the movie? It was so sick. Hey, James, did you read you Only Die Once? It was so dope. Hey, James, see when you're speaking next. Break a leg, man. And I'm just thinking my subconscious mind is having a fit right now. Like these words, I get what you're saying. They're positive intention, you're trying to say something. But actually their origin is very negative. And we get into this habit of swearing a lot. We get into this habit of describing things with negative words, and it becomes kind of hip and cool. Do you feel like the words we use have an impact on our psychology?

Oh, I definitely do. You know, there's a Range. Right. So for some people, they might feel there's like more of a, like electricity in some words for them than others. And yet. So, you know, for someone to say, for example, it's sick, um, I think that for some people, they've really indoctrinated that as something that is. They understand it in the zeitgeist. But I do think, like, every word matters, you know, just like the energy around the people that we're hanging out with or even having a podcast conversation with, it's all contagious and it all has influence and it all has. I don't really study too much about vibrations and energy, but there's a whole world of people that love that and get that. And so I do think that, that, I don't know, you know, this makes me think in the very little blip that we are on the radar screens of existence, I just want to give myself a leg up. In any given moment, I want to rig my life as best as possible to just like it a little bit more and ideally even love it and feel like I lived it in a way that was alive. And so if it means that I need to be conscious of some of the words I use, or conscious, of course, of the people I hang out with, or conscious, of course, more importantly, the self reflection we can do, which is really, quite frankly, what my book is stuffed with, I should count. It's possible that there are 75,000 questions to ask yourself about your life.

I want us to have that awareness so that we can just give ourselves this amazing chance to live astonishingly, you.

Know, and you mentioned that so beautifully around questioning. And I think we're asking ourselves questions subconsciously all day, every day. Should I or shouldn't I? What does this mean to me? Where should I go? What should I wear? If you had to think of a question that could help someone live really intentionally, what might that question be?

Oh, I have it ready, Ready, ready, ready. I'm very passionate about this.

What makes you feel most alive, and that's grand. And sometimes that can feel a bit startling because, I don't know, I have to chew, I have to rank order all these. And that's fine. I'd say, what if we just got a bullet point list going? Let's start with things that make you feel alive. And then we have to qualify it because again, I think we get self conscious. And every time in a workshop, it happens where someone's like, feel embarrassed about the thing. And then I like to go first with like silly, idly piddly. Little examples like, you know.

Brushing our cat.

Little bits again of happiness and joy and aliveness. So once we can start to give ourselves permission to feel like little stuff counts and then you start to grow it. And when you're aware of the stuff that makes you feel undeniably alive, you know, when you get into flow, you know that zone of psychology where you lose track of time and self consciousness and you're just like, oh, you're just literally swept away or something that you look forward to is another big clue. Like if you're just so freaking excited about it on the horizon and you can't stop talking about it and then afterwards when you do it, if you're just so excited about it and you're telling people and you get lit up, that is a little bit of the secret to living a livelier life. It's like, identify those things, which is funny to me that we just sometimes take them for granted or we're not tuned in and then do more of them. You know, like we're looking for new answers. A lot. We're looking for.

You know, we're wired to want something fancy and new. I understand that, but what about recognizing the things that are already floating your boat and then go get in that boat and go, go on the, go on the sea, you know, go out there and I think we, we have more inside of us already that we can tap and we're just not paying attention to it. And my goodness, that to me, I mean, I'm the world. I get back to low hanging fruit. Let's just make it a little bit easier to love our lives.

Because life can be difficult and life can be challenging and stressful and really nasty at times and hurtful and there's loss, there's grief. So what I'm hearing is like, yeah, we've got to navigate that and that's inevitable. But in all the other time, don't waste all that other time, like look for the joy.

Oh, well, I'm so glad you said that. And even the word navigate is kind of crucial. So in the Penn resilience program, the word navigate, adversity is exactly the choice. It's the verb that's consciously chosen around resilience because it does require sometimes some skillful work. Back to your ship metaphor, your boat. But I'd be remiss, you know, I'm the first to admit, I mean, I'm the one that talks about death. Like that's the biggest downer of all, let's be honest. So I'm not here. Just like pumping sunshine all day.

Life can super suck. And it's designed to. It's what we signed up for when we asked to be born. You know, it's just part of the journey. We know this. And it's all the more reason why it behooves us.

To be thoughtful and make the most of our time. Because we're just navigating. Back to your word. We're just navigating some treacherous waters, just some average days, some calamities, all the things that are going to happen. And we can more than offset it with just a little bit more of a deliberate thought. To say, for example, however you work, look at time. Some people are like by the month. Some people like the idea of 100 day intervals. Some people like it to be a year thematically. A lot of people will choose a big birthday to be the year they do a thing. Whatever it's going to take for you to feel in some way motivated. And ultimately I'm going to go back to the countdown because there could be no bigger motivator than that is to say, how many Mondays do you have left? You know, for me to know I have 1,830.

That makes me go, oh, I'm going to make the most of this, you know, this weekend coming up, for example, because I can't waste it again. I might not even get 1,830, let's be honest.

Yeah, I'm with you. Just before we hit record, I was chatting to Caroline about the idea, the concept of 4000 Mondays. And she was like, don't like, that's so much like, I don't want to know right now. And I feel the same, like a pushback going, whoa, that's confronting. To think, on average a human gets 4,000 Mondays. But actually if we were to think of that once a week, hey, I've only got 3,000 left or 2,000 left or 1,000 left. That's going to shift how we show up, how we feel about the day, how we treat ourselves and others. So for the person struggling to understand the idea of 4000 Mondays, what does it mean? Where does that research come from?

Oh, yeah, the research is called temporal scarcity. And it's this idea that we can relate to other parts of our lives. We can say, okay, when we know that there is any kind of asset back to economics and it is seen as rare, or it is limited time, only temporary. Insert synonyms here. Our perception of how much it is worth increases. Right? So that's why certain Kinds of diamonds. Obviously you're going to pay more money for them, or I think they're gross. But, you know the pumpkin spice latte, you got those going on over there.

I know those.

No, thanks. But everybody loves them because they're limited time only. And so the mechanism that it's happening psychologically is this like a little bit of a. Take your breath away that, oh, wait a minute, this isn't going to be here long. I better act now. And the studies that I have come across around this are pretty great, that do reinforce that, you know, whether it's students who are reminded of how much time they have left before graduation, depending how it's framed, or when you're reminded on a vacation that, oh, you know, your flight home is coming on Sunday morning, and all of a sudden we get up off the lounge chair and start to do the things that we said we were going to do. Although a lounge chair is also perfectly lovely. Whatever, whatever you choose.

We need it and we adapt, right? Like, this is the. The experience of being alive is that we love to get comfortable and get into sort of easy routines, and we take life for granted, and we come by that honestly. So I never want to be the one, you know, sitting here on my, I don't know, soapbox in a graveyard, you know, bitching and moaning at us for how we do take life for granted. Because this is not an admonishment. This is about, like, oh, guys, look what we do naturally. Wow. I mean, I wish we didn't, but we do. And so what can we do to just sort of gently bring ourselves back? Or maybe not gently. Maybe it is a bit of an abrupt poke in the ribs to say, oh, no, honey, you got to, like, your countdown is. It's not going up, it's going down. And can that be the motivator for you to maybe do some of the things that are on your bucket list now rather than later?

I see you as somewhat of a modern stoic. Like, I love Seneca and Epictetus. I love reading about what they wrote about. And it's confronting at times, but it's simple, it's understandable, and it makes total sense. So when I hear you speak, I'm like, you're a modern stoic. And holding the mirror to my face, going, james, this is it. There's no more chances, no more times. This is it. Today's happening, and life will end at some point. Now, I imagine psychology plays a big part in everything that we do. So you've got a master's in Positive psychology. So for the person that's listening going, what's the difference between a master's in psychology versus positive psychology?

Yeah, Positive psychology is the scientific study of what makes life worth living. And that's a bit quippy. Okay, so I'll get a little more down to earth for you. It's the scientific study of well being. So whatever the conditions are that allow people to thrive, or groups like teams or communities or organizations to do their very best work. Whereas, you know, quote unquote, traditional psychology is rooted in the study of what is abnormal. So it's based on the illness model, you know, of, hey, when we have problems and troubles and we gotta go see a therapist because this is what's ailing me. Time and a place for that, for sure. And positive psychology seeks to say, let's study what's going well, and then back to the idea of and let's do more of that. So it is the study of strengths and all the positive attributes of well being.

Incredible.

Come from. Is already just rooted in, you know, one might say, well, wait a sec, shouldn't memento mori be rooted in the other side, you know, of, wow, crappy human condition that we're dying. What do we want to, you know. No, but I. That's where I flipped the script with using it as that catalyst to wake up and do the very best things that make us feel like we are living, like we mean it with that sense of urgency.

I love it. Your perception shapes your reality and I love how you've changed. Like what that looks like.

I love that quote. You're right.

Another thing I wanted to share with you. So I deal with a lot of high performers. So people are professional athletes or they're running great companies and they want to go from either good to great or great to greater. Right? And I often say to them, let's talk about high performance. And so for me, my belief around high performance is consistently exceeding norms whilst maintaining healthy relationships and wellbeing. That last bit, consistently maintaining healthy relationships and wellbeing. I feel that sometimes people who want high performance results, they're willing to sacrifice the health, the wellbeing, and the relationships. I was one of those people, for sure. I was wanting to win world championship after world championship, and that was fun. But my health suffered, my relationship suffered. That ended in divorce, like it wasn't pretty. So I feel like positive psychology plays a really crucial part in helping us understand what high performance can be.

Ooh.

You'Re preaching to the choir here. But I do totally agree. And I think that's rooted in the science of it. And so you've already highlighted a couple of the key tenets. You talked about positive relationships, you know, and thriving with accomplishment. So the PERMA is one of the most well known acronyms for well being research in the world. And so I'll zip through it. P is positive emotions, putting yourself in a positive emotional state when possible. E is engagement, R is relationships, good ones, M is meaning, and A is achievement and accomplishment. And usually for most people, it's a medley of those things. We can have moments in our lives, you know, where there are trade offs. Right. So, you know, you competing, you knew, I'm gonna go full force over here. And it might mean that some of these other things are going to languish. And sometimes we, I mean, you know, we have busy times at work or if you're raising a young child, I mean, like, we can't do everything every freaking day. So we gotta.

You just launched a best selling book. Right. So I got it.

Exactly. All the rest is gonna just go to squat because it's all about bad now. Right? Right. So we, we're always making trade offs. The only issue I think is sometimes we don't give ourselves like the creed, like the ability to do that. We actually feel like, I'm a failure. I'm not balancing my life. No, no, no. It's about, you know, what's more important right now versus others. But I think the framework that I look at is often about what I call diagnosing the dead zones. So you might be in a phase of your life where you're like, I'm competing and this is making me feel most alive. Like you might have answered that in one of my keynotes and been like, yeah, check mark, underline, highlight. It's when I'm competing and I'd be like, well, who's to stop you? Right? And so on one hand, like, that's living a life that you feel is worth living. But I think when we're honest with ourselves and we look at all the domains of life, including, you know, your own health, mental, physical, et cetera, your finances, the rest of your career, your relationships with family and friends, your recreation, your spirituality, romance, all the facets, growth, et cetera, sometimes we get that, like, it's like a niggling sense, you know, like in that instance, back to your example, you were like competing and that's like, that's making me feel fantastic. But maybe when you look at all those little areas, you might go, ooh, that one you said, makes me feel funny inside. And we all know ourselves, like if we're being honest, then that's your chance. That to me is diagnosing the dead zone where it's like, maybe you want to just infuse that with a little more life. And, and it may. And what would that look like? You know, it doesn't mean you have to compromise all of your competitions from now on. If you did decide to engage in more of a spiritual practice or you did decide to just rekindle the going out with the guys once a month again that you kind of got fell off track with. Like, I think that again is the self awareness looking in and saying, where might I feel like I need to add a little more life to my life? We all have those dead spots 100%.

And I really hope that the listener that's listening right now, I hope that you're in good health and that you get this book now. There will be someone who's not in good health that maybe knows they've got a limited time, they're going to buy this book and learn about their last. Could be weeks or months. But I really hope more and more people who are fully healthy and alive get this book now. And I'm going to put a link actually to your, to your website in the show notes so people can get this book. But I just want to ask you about the book a bit more. So if you picked one chapter and you said, guys, if you only had enough time to read one chapter, what do you think is the most crucial chapter?

I didn't know you were going to torture me today, James. I'm just, I feel so offended now. I'm literally flipping through and I'm going.

To take your time.

I feel like I'm like, I have this like harem of children and I'm picking one child.

Gosh.

Well, I'm going to get creative with my answer. I'm going to be. I'm basically going to do what the politicians do. I'm going to answer my, my own question.

I love it. Give me three chapters.

I'll just tell you the one not to read. How about I do that? No, no, no.

You know, it all begins with self awareness. And so the pre mortem is what I call it kind of after the intro. You know, the intro's like, here's what you're signing up for, honey bunny. Let's buckle up together. But the pre mortem is like, let's do that work of looking inside. Let's get honest about the Stuff that makes you happy. And I get literal right down to every sense. Because our experience about getting out there and feeling alive again or livelier is about what you eat and what you feel and how you're, what you listen to, what kind of playlists and what you're going to, you know, all the very with tweezer, like precision, getting to know you again about the alivening things, the deadening things, everything in between. And so I do believe, you know, you see this all the time in your practice. It's like awareness is the precursor to change.

And now I feel like I've had a limb ripped off of me because then I'm going to be like, yeah, but you got to read the Date with Death because you got to understand how death can be the motivator. I'm just, I'm not playing this game. Done.

I love it. You played it well. You win.

Now, Date with Death, I want to actually talk about that. So.

In October last year, I started working with a health coach because I just want to be proactive. I want to maximize and optimize my health where possible. So I got this aura ring. He said, you know what, James, let's measure your sleep. That's pretty crucial stuff. So cool, we'll start measuring that. And shortly after working with him, I found a lump in my left pec. And I thought, well, that's interesting. And it was all inflamed. Went to the doctor, I was about to head off on holiday to Fiji the next day and the doctor said, take an antibiotic and it should be fine, but if the lump's still there, come back and see us. So I'm off on holiday and all of a sudden all these blood tests are coming through from my health coach that we'd done kind of proactively and most of it was looking amazing and some of it was elevated and I started googling, as you shouldn't do. And some scary stuff came up around potential breast cancer, potential prolactinoma in the brain. So I start to panic, I start to think about death that I'd never really thought about before. I started looking at my 7 year old son going like, what can I do today, this moment, this month, this year, I started really focusing on making the most of every moment and of course at the same time dealing with dread and dealing with where it might go. Yeah, thankfully it's now many months since that and I've went through all the tests you could imagine everything looked great. My specialist said, you are a disgustingly healthy human I'll take that from any specialist, so that's good. But I had a date with death and it's made me read different things, it's made me look at situations very differently. And honestly, it's made me more present, like just to the simple things. Birdsong, morning coffee, playing games with my son, like all those things for the date with death. If somebody doesn't get to have one of those, and touch wood, most people don't have to have that. But if they don't get the date with death, is there a way for them to kind of try and experience what it feels like?

Well, first of all, I am on one hand, sorry you had to go through the anguish. And yet we also know we're both sitting here going, lucky you that you got to have the scare, right? And there's a whole chapter in here about wake up calls, which is exactly about people who've had brushes with death because they have insight that the rest of us have just gotten to, you know, walk around our days with blinders on. So you are actually at the crux of every single thing I do, which is like, I'm trying to create a completely innocent near death experience for us that helps us to do this thing about going, wait, what if I didn't have a life? What if my time was actually more abbreviated than the mystery game we're playing every day that I'm lucky to wake up? And that is the act of, of course, reading the book is itself a memento mori practice. And for those who have had, like, you've experienced a brush with death or people who've had a longer pro, like a prolonged experience, like maybe they went through chemo. And I give lots of examples of how people I know who have had clients, friends that have emerged through long durations of am I going to live? Am I going to live? Am I going to live? Now I get to live. And so I think reading their stories can be really inspiring and thinking, holy crap, like, if that was me and I came home after 24 chemo treatments and I got a clear bill of health. Or I tell the story of Chris, a guy that was only in his late 20s and he had brain tumor and he had like three different brain surgeries and as he calls it, they would kept going in until taking more of the avocado out of his brain. And the day that he got the green light that you're good and he sat there sitting outside the hospital in Philadelphia, looking at the helicopters that were just kind of bringing patients in and marveling his gratitude soared in that moment about what humanity was capable of and saying, I'm just so grateful that as humans, we're able to even make these machines that can help people. And I'm so grateful that I get to be here and I'm sitting on this bench outside the hospital and I'm breathing and I smell the trees that are fragrant. And like, when I hear Chris's story or all the stories that I tell retell, those are the closest chances we get other than engaging in that silly movie from the 90s called Flatliners where you try to kill yourself and bring yourself back to life.

Please don't do that.

I don't recommend that. No, don't do that. But.

It'S the discussion of this, it's hearing about other people, it's counting your Mondays. It's having little tiny skulls all around you like I do. You know, I've got my, obviously, obviously. I've got my memento mori coin handy dandy. Like every little help we can get to remind ourselves because we're going to want to forget. And also, even if you're okay with a topic, many people aren't and you're going to want to avoid it. And I'm here to rankle. So let's create those almost experiences in a gentle, safe way. And it's again, all in service of making the most of our time.

Absolutely. Thank you. And you said one thing there that I think is really important for us to touch on, shine a light on a bit. And that was grateful. You said it a number of times. And I practice a gratitude practice in the morning, at night. It's very, very simple. It's in my journal. Nobody gets to see it. I get to look at it, write it and feel it. And it's something I enjoy doing. And it's only something I've done for the last five or six years, but it really has, I feel, shaped how I see my life. So do you have any advice and can you back it up with any kind of psychological kind of evidence around the practice of gratitude? Why someone should do it?

Oh, goodness. It is, actually. I'm so glad you said this. I flip a coin regularly in research. Between is it gratitude or optimism that is the most studied in positive psychology? And there are so many interventions. The research is like, like fabulously, nauseatingly overwhelming. That gratitude does create a better existence. So it leads to literal physical better outcomes. Physiologically even, because your mind's, your mindset is different, it leads to decreased depression, even over a six month period, which anything in psychology that is like, that lasts, you know, more than like two weeks of a study is seen as a big win. Yeah. Being grateful is tied intrinsically right in there with this practice of contemplating mortality. Because whether we go back to people who have had a brush with death and they come out and they are outrageously appreciative of the life they get to live. But there's also research that.

When people have been prompted, even in lab studies where they need to read, they're in a control group and they just read an essay about, I don't know, butterflies. And then some people are asked to read a little bit about their impending death and then other people, they create all these conditions, the state of gratitude. Because it can be a disposition in a state they soar. People who have had any kind of exposure. It's called mortality salience. When you are reminded in some way of the fact that, sorry, but you are going to die, that immediately puts you into almost a primed position to. In some cases it doesn't. We won't necessarily go into it if it's abstract, it sometimes can make you feel a little bit.

It causes you to double down on your world views and want to boost your self esteem. That's one corner I'd be remiss if I didn't mention. But if we're more reflective about the fact that we're going to die, like exactly our discussion and what this book's about, it's like, really? No, let's take it seriously and, and take it to heart. That type of reflection does create a greater degree of gratitude according to even just study after study. So back to this idea. Like, it's a great way to live our lives. It's one of the most important positive emotions we can experience. Oh, I have a good way to do that. Remember you're going to die. It can make you grateful in a hurry.

Yeah, I love it. Remember you're going to die. And do you practice gratitude in a formal way or is it more consistent throughout the day, informally?

Yeah. So I have a gratitude practice that I rotate. And so I actually base a lot of it even on research that if it's done.

Every single day sort of for the rest of your life, there was nothing wrong with that. But I think sometimes it needs to be just a little bit like spiced up, where I'll rotate it in for two weeks and then I'll rotate it out for a month and I'll rotate it back in just to kind of create a little Bit more of that spark. And one of the best things, as I'm sure you experience, and this is true for the research.

When you are engaging in that practice of like every night, for example, I gotta think about three or five things that I gotta write down that I'm grateful for today. It changes the orientation of your life. Right. So you're walking through your days all of a sudden, not just trying to get the assignment done ahead of time, like, oh, I got to figure out what to write tonight. It's that you just start to notice things because you're like, that's going to go in my journal tonight. The fact that I saw that new bud on the tree. Oh, that's going to be item number three that I write down. It's like you're noticing life in a different way than you would had you not. So the practice of this, I think it's actually one of the back to I said, kind of lowest hanging fruit. It's one of the most important things I think we can do to experience.

A life worth living is rotate in a gratitude practice like you have. Do you find that. Do you find you look at your days differently?

Very much so. 100%. Whether it's the start of the day or the end of the day. At the start of the day, being grateful, it's usually things like the birdsong I can hear, the bed I've just slept in, or the fact that Finn's going to wake up any moment now and be full of energy and grateful for those moments. Yeah. And it shapes how I feel for sure, and what I decide then to place my focus on. And at the end of the day, I just. I feel it's a nice, peaceful way to kind of bookend the day by just going on, what were the three to five things that actually stood out today that were pretty cool and I'm grateful for. And sometimes they're really tiny little things that people would look at. Why are you grateful for that? Like, I just done.

Well, that brings us back to the discussion of even in the midst of the craptastic days that go on that are just sort of lousy, there's always a little something. There's always that little thing we can say, you know what? Those leftovers were really, really good today and I didn't have to make the dinner, you know, like, that might be, like, that is worth celebrating. We don't celebrate those little tiny little triumphs enough. You know, I think it's a good chance.

Yeah, 100% agree. And you mentioned two things disposition and state. You said that could be one or the other. What do you mean by that?

Yeah, well, it's sort of like, if you think of it with. Even optimism is an easy one. There could be. It's like state or trait. So if you are, for some people, you are. It's a trait you possess that you're just sort of naturally optimistic, which a lot of it is hereditary. So if your mom or dad were glass half full, you might, chances are, be your glass half empty. Sorry about that. And then so sometimes it has to do with a biological background, and other times it's a disposition where it has to do with, like, your explanatory style is a big thing in positive psychology. So the way you explain to yourself why things happened will be revelatory, and you can shape it and do it intentionally in order to look on the brighter side. So, for example, if, say, something not so great happens to you, you might decide to make it really personal. Like, you know, well, I didn't get that job speaking on the stage because they didn't think that I was good. You take it personally. And then you might make it pervasive, like it's a global thing, like, I'm never going to get hired again, you know, or you make it, yeah, like a permanent thing, like this is going to cloud the rest of my business the rest of my life. And sometimes we're not always that catastrophic, but sometimes we are. And so noticing and catching, like, what's my explanatory style? That is the state or the disposition of being optimistic or not. Same thing about grateful versus the kind of like your sort of default setting that you were maybe born with. And. But we all have the ability to change our explanatory style, right? We can all stop and interrogate it and go, okay, I see your tendency, honey bunny. I see what you're doing. You're trying to make it, you know, you're blaming yourself or you're implying it's going to be a permanent thing. What's another way to see this? I mean, you're clients all the time, right?

Yeah, I really feel that. And it's interesting. A friend of mine, Gordy, once said to me, james, I truly believe in learned optimism. I said, what do you mean by that? And what you have just explained kind of really connects in with what he said. We can learn to be more optimistic in our worldview, in our personal view.

Yes. Well, that is. Learned optimism is the name of the book by the father of positive psychology, Martin Seligman. Who is it? Penn. And so that is exactly. I mean, we just covered the whole book. That was the book review right there.

I love it.

I love it. And the other one you mentioned at the start of the call, I want to be mindful of your time, but the other one you mentioned was flow. So Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi dedicated, like, his life to flow. And I think we all wanna experience it, and I believe we all have. But some of us, I think, struggle to get back into that flow state, whether that's in our work performance, relationships, whatever it might be. So my understanding, just high level is one, you've got to do one thing, not a multitude of things. It's got to be something you enjoy, and it's got to be on, I think, the edge of your comfort zone, almost into your discomfort zone. And when you get those two or three things happening. I might have missed one. But is that the kind of idea around getting into flow?

Yeah, I think exactly. And there's a beautiful chart. Anybody can Google. It mesmerizes me every time because it is the x and Y axis, and one is like, skill, like, your literal level of ability that you have to do this thing and then, like, the level of challenge. So if we are, let's just say you're taking on a new hobby and you're gung ho, you're excited about it, but you all of a sudden have to. It's like a pottery class, and you're like, this is the advanced class you went into by mistake. There will be no flow because you're gonna feel like an idiot. You're not gonna be like. You're gonna be throwing this, like, pottery everywhere. That is not gonna get you to flow because the skill is not high enough. You don't have enough knowledge yet, and the challenge is way too great. And then the reverse can be true sometimes where you're like, this is beginner pottery, guys. Been here, done that. There ain't no challenge. I'm super skilled. There will be no flow today. Back to Remedial Pottery 101. So it's always finding that skill sweet spot between having there be just like. Like a. Like a little. Little challenge like you said, that's like, oh, I'm a little in my comfort zone. I'm gonna have to stretch and try and maybe look like an idiot and not do so great. But, oh, man. Like, when I'm doing this thing, I'm learning, I'm growing. And yes, ideally, it is not a task that you despise. You know, because you can learn and grow at something that you're like, I like. I hate every minute of pottery. Oh, well, then that won't be flowy either. So it does need to be ideally, a task that you're like, this is kind of cool. And I feel good about myself that I'm stretching and, oh, my gosh, is it already 5 o'? Clock? Like, I know, like, where'd the time go? You know, like, do you mind if I ask you? Because you do so many cool things, what is it lately that gets you into that feeling of flow?

Two things, like, from a professional standpoint that come to mind. One is being on a stage, speaking to an audience that genuinely wants to be challenged or informed or inspired. I get into a lot of flow. Time flies when I'm on stage. Enjoy that a lot. But I'm also on the edge of my comfort zone every single time because I don't know what questions they might ask. And anything goes. Other thing is writing. I really enjoy writing. And so I get into. I could write for three hours and time just goes by. And again, it's uncomfortable and it's challenging. Have to think. And then with, I guess with family, to just being out with the dogs, walking the dogs with my family and going to our favorite cafe. So those simple things would be what brings me into flow.

So I love what you're saying. It's making me think about how a life that feels like it's kind of worth living for you. There's the right kind of dose of each thing. It's like, you need flow. And like I said earlier, find what that is for you and do it more often. But at some point, there's also, like, there can be, like, a lot of stimulation there where you're like, can I just take the dog for a walk? Right? Like, let me have the balance of, like, wow, I'm on the edge of my comfort zone. And for most of us, if it's that right dose again, it's thrilling and it's not terrifying. So there's a good kind of release of the right, you know, endorphins, et cetera. And then. And then we need to have some of that, like, whatever the recharge, regroup, rest is. And that's why I think it's also important. And I'm a big fan of having columns and for spreadsheets. And it's like, what's the column for you of the R and R that feels restorative, you know, because sometimes it's like some People will choose a bubble bath, Some people will choose a walk, Some people will choose zoning out to a great movie, whatever it is, again, that's going to do it for you. But having almost like a. I like to just have a cheat sheet so that we have it like at the ready. Like, what do I need right now? Do I need to have a day where I feel like I'm just gonna take a beat, but how do I do that where I don't feel like I squandered it? Because there's a difference there that makes us feel empty inside. Like, if you're just scrolling through social media for hours on end, that's not going to probably make you feel great about your restoring time, but what might that be? So having just again back to knowing yourself and having that like, what are the answers to the test? Like, I just want to have the answer. I just want to know. And sometimes we just go through our days a little bit. We're not looking in the mirror enough to know what are the answers to my tests? How will I back to operating manual? If I want to know how to live a life, that's awesome for me, maybe I need to have it noted or written down.

Yeah, I'm with you. What gets scheduled, gets done. And if I'm working towards something meaningful, writing it down or putting it on my calendar, it drives me towards it. And you said something that made me think about a joy menu or a flow menu, like actually having a written. You called it a cheat sheet. Like have a menu of things that bring joy or flow. And next time you feel bored and you're reaching for social media on your phone, pop it down, get your joy menu out and go. What's one of those 30 things I could do instead?

Oh, this is. I love this so much that I encourage some people to do it. And some people that also don't mind Excel have it so that you include the time increment that was required for the thing. So, you know, one woman I know, she's like, I just love. I get feel so alive and, and rested. Like all the things that make her feel astonishingly alive when she's tending to her orchids. Okay. But for her, like that's a, that's a seven minute thing just to go. And I don't know what she does, I don't know how. What do you do you tweeze? Do you like cut the clip, you smell and whatever she needs to do, it's like zippy. So if that for her is like, maybe in between her next meeting, she can just go and be like, just a quick, like, little, like an orchid hit, you know, rather than my inclination. And by the way, I listened to one of your podcasts recently about Inbox Zero, and I am your target audience. Whoa. I was like, I'm busted. I will always check. Always. I will often check email at the expense of living a life that I want to live. And like every seven minutes counts, man. So I need, you know. So back to your point. I have a list of things that bring me little bits of joy and happiness, big bits and so on, and it's all organized by time. And so, you know, admittedly, a little bit of a shame on me if I'm not doing the thing in that seven minute break.

How tangible. I know. Emails are so all consuming. Yeah, I've had a lot of feedback on that episode, that's for sure. Some people are, like, very protective of Inbox Zero and they want to maintain it. And I'll say, look, you got to do what you got to do, but if it's at the expense of joy or connection, what's the point?

Right? Right, yes. Yeah, I believe you philosophically, and I'm working towards it.

High five.

I love it.

Now, Judy, I want to be really mindful of your time, so I've got one last question. Before I ask you the question, I just want to say to the listener and the viewer, if you're on YouTube, you know, I've put the links below to connecting with Jodi on her social media, also her website, so you can go straight there and get this book. This is a book that you want to read, but it's also going to be a book that you probably want to gift to someone you love, whether that's a dear friend or someone that just needs to live the life they've been gifted. So I'm going to put that link down below. And Judy, thank you so much for creating this space. It's been amazing.

Oh, thank you for the space. I'm obsessed with time, as we've discussed, and how fleeting it is. And I just really couldn't be more sure that this time with you has been a great way to spend a big, important part of my day.

So thank you, thank you, thank you. Well, the very, very last question, I want you to imagine this is you and I moving forward into the future, many, many years into the future, and you're highly aware that it's your last day on earth. Someone very young who you know and love comes into the room and they ask you, Jody, how do I go about leading my life on purpose? What would you say to him?

Oh, I wouldn't hesitate. I would say, go become super close buddies with the Grim Reaper. And not that close. I mean, you know, he'll snuff your life out, but get just close enough that you can go out for brunch or. Or happy hour or just hang out enough to kind of keep him in a dip, but, like, get intimate enough to know. Thanks, dude. Like, I see you hovering. Stay just a little bit back. But thank you for being here, because unless if you weren't here, I'd just be going along the rest of my days on autopilot. Befriend the reaper.

So powerful. I ask that same question to every single guest, and they're the first person to ever say that. So thank you. I appreciate that deeply.

Thank you.

And memento mori. Cheers, Jody. Thank you so much. A very special thanks to NZ Mortgages for sponsoring this episode of the Lead On Purpose podcast. You can check them out at nzmortgages.co nz.