737 Defy Regret and Break Your Limits with Bronnie Ware

This is episode number 737 with best selling author Bronnie Ware. Welcome to the School of Greatness.

My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur and each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

Brett Favre said, you're never guaranteed about next year. People ask what you think of next season. You have to seize the opportunities when they're right in front of you. Welcome to this episode. It's all about regrets and defying regret and breaking through the limits that we have in our own life that hold us back and that later in our life we end up regretting because we never did the things we wanted to do. We never said the things we wanted to say. We never took the chances or the risks on living the life we wanted to live. We allow fear, insecurity, other people's opinions to hold us back in such big ways that we end up regretting later in life. And and that's what this is all about. Bronnie Ware is the author of the mega hit and memoir the Top five Regrets of the Dying, your Year for Change and Bloom. And she is an inspirational speaker and songwriter as well and took over the world with her book the Top five Regrets of the Dying. And in this interview we talk about the biggest lessons Bronnie learned about while working with dying patients for so many years. The power of being comfortable with vulnerability when someone is in that state. The importance of unplanned space and time. You guys know that I always talk about scheduling your days and scheduling the action steps you're going to take in order to prove that you're capable of these things and move your life forward and move your dreams forward. But there's also power in unplanned space and time. I actually plan my space and in time. I'll put it in the calendar and schedule it as free time. But there's power in having that space so that you can be more creative and how to appreciate life more now and not at the end of our life. That and so much more. I'm super excited about this one. Make sure to share it with your friends. Lewishouse.com 737 and now's the perfect time of year to reflect back and ask yourself, is there anything that you regret this year? Is there anything that you wish you would have said, that you wish you would have done, you wish you wouldn't have said or wouldn't have done and make a list of these things. What do you regret from this year? What held you back this year and how can you make it right? How can you move forward? How can you accept what you did, learn, grow and be braver moving forward, take bigger risks and continue to live a life that impacts and is in service to other people? That's what you got to think about and reflect on and I'd love for you to to make a list and let me know. Feel free to share with me on Instagram Lewishouse and let me know.

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All right guys, I'm excited about this one. Don't let 2019 or any year be the year that you regret not going for something. Don't let yourself reflect at the end of next year and say what is it that I wish I would have done? I wish I would have gone after. I wish I would at least given it a full effort. Don't regret moving forward. Without further ado, let me introduce to you to the one, to the only Bronnie Ware.

Welcome, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got Bronnie Ware in the house. Good to see you. Thank you for being here. All the way from Australia.

Yeah, pleasure.

You're the author of a number of books. One your biggest hit's called the Top Five Regrets of the Dying, which most people have seen or heard about this. And you've got a new book out called the Tale of Courage, Surrender and Breaking Through Upper Limits, which I think is really insightful as well. So thank you for being here. I want to share a little bit about your story and learn more about this, because this book came from working with people who were about to die.

Yes.

Like they had a few years left.

Or they were a few weeks or months.

Few weeks. So it was like the worst of conditions.

They'd gone home to die.

They'd gone home to die. How many people were you working with?

Well, I worked for about eight years looking after dying people, so a couple of hundred.

Wow.

These were people who could afford home care and they were in hospital and they knew they were dying and they'd chosen to go home and have care at home.

And you were the one that would go in to their home?

Yes, for 12 hour shifts, from 8 in the morning till 8 at night, five or six days a week. And. And I'd stay with them for some it was three weeks, some it was up to three months, but no one longer than that.

Three months was the max, usually. And were people still able to communicate well and expressive, or were some of them kind of fading?

When I first met most of them, they could still communicate well, but they certainly faded over time. And because of that, their energy levels became so low that they didn't waste time on small talk.

They're just like, here it is, here's how I feel. Because they knew that life is ending soon.

And some of them had a lot to say. Some of them just were in deep contemplation for quite a while with the shock and the grief of dying. But some of them just had. There were some who I've written about in there actually made me promise that I would share their message onward. Because they had such powerful regrets and they didn't want other people to make the same mistakes. So I was very blessed, you know, to be able to hear these messages over and over and over again and realise, okay, this is what it looks and feels like to be dying with regret. There's no way I'm going down that road myself.

Was there anyone that you were working with that didn't have regrets.

Yes. Yeah, there were. There were. And there were people who, you know, would have done things differently but didn't sort of judge themselves as harshly as to call it regret.

They still accepted where they were.

Yes. Yeah. But there were more people who had regrets than didn't. And those who didn't were people who, most of them had a really good sense of humour. They also had very good communication and family relationships or good networks of friends around them. They had connection and they came and.

Supported or saw them and you got to witness them.

Yes, yeah. And they'd lived full lives in terms of love and connection.

What would you say is the sixth regret if there was a sixth one? Because you said there's top five regrets and we can share those quickly. The first one is I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself and not the life that others expected me. And I think so many people live what their parents want them to do with their friends or society.

Right?

Society, Yep.

We see that a lot and it's sad. We were just talking about this with another guest, Robert Greene, who was on who's. Like most people, they wake up at like 27 or 30 and they realize, like, I'm down a path that I don't want to do.

Yes.

They have like a quarter life crisis or something and they're like, what do I really want to do? What did I want to do as a child?

Or wake up at 50 or 60 and say that, yeah, it's even worse.

Yes, that's even worse.

But it's true, it happens a lot.

So that's the first regret. The second one is, I wish I hadn't worked so hard. Now, I'm curious about this because I actually believe in working really hard on a greater purpose. On a purpose to impact the people around you, your society, your community, and to spread a message.

Sure.

And so I go back and forth when I read that, I'm like, what does that mean, not work so hard? Does it mean, like, just chill out all day and relax with your friends and, you know.

No.

I mean, you gotta make a living.

You want to make an impact. You want to achieve certain things, right?

Yes. Yeah. But it's also about working efficiently, which I'm sure you do. And it's about leaving space for other areas of your life and not making work your whole life. So it's not about working so hard that you don't put all of your passion into what you love doing, especially if you've done the work and you've got yourself onto a path where you're doing your life's work. And so of course we're passionate about it. We want to, you know, bring that message out and share it and give it our best love, but it's not our whole life and we need to actually turn off from work sometimes and say, okay, well, now I'm going to spend time with relationships, with friends, with family, with movement, with nature, adventure, play, all of that. Because all of that nourishes our soul as well. And the more we can find space or create space for those other areas, the more heart we bring to our work anyway. And the more efficiency we bring to our work. That's right, because it's all well and good to work a 60 hour week, but if you're really only doing 10 hours of quality work and if your.

Health is suffering or your relationships are suffering, you're missing the juice of life.

And that's not success.

Yeah, I agree. The third regret is I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings. Do most people not express themselves?

Not to the depth that they'd like to.

Why is that? And they're afraid of what other people think about them.

Yeah. The vulnerability and sometimes just the communication channels haven't been developed enough so they don't actually know how to. It's not so much that they don't want to. Certainly there are a couple of patients in there who really wanted to, but just didn't know how to start the ball rolling, even with their families. You know, a Gentleman in his 90s died feeling like his family didn't even know him.

Wow.

And he wanted to, but he just couldn't start the ball rolling to open up to that level of vulnerability.

Did a lot of these individuals write letters of their feelings and then like leave them behind when they're gone?

Well, some did, but no, not many. Not many. I mean, I had to pass on messages a lot and I think other carers sometimes play that role as well. But what I found was with my patients, I ended up being their main carer. So I would go in for a day or two. And that's what happens when someone's HomeSick. They get three or four different carers over the first week or two. And then they say, I want Bronnie or I want so and so. And so you become their main care. And so, you know, there were times they'd say, I want you to tell my son this. And I'd say, well, you're still alive. You can tell yourself, come on you can do it or I would facilitate, you know, a start of a conversation sometimes and then silently leave the room.

There you go.

Yeah, yeah, that's good.

Okay. So wishing we had the courage to express our feelings. How do you think we can express our feelings now while we're alive and healthy and well so that we don't regret that. What is the process to expressing ourselves better?

Well, I think it's how to avoid all of the regrets and that is to face the fact that we're going to die and that we're on limited time. And the more we can actually bring that realisation into our belief systems and our conversations and our and society's beliefs, then the more courage we have anyway because we realise, okay, I don't have all the time in the world to do what I want to do and to say what I need to say and everything else. And so to find those levels of vulnerability, it takes courage. Any form of regret, free living is going to take immense courage. But when you use death as a tool for living and you say I'm on limited time, you do find that courage. Because not only do you realise you've got to say this stuff or you're going to regret it later or you're going to leave it too late, but you also just end up not caring so much what people think of you because they're going to die, you're gonna die. We're all just doing the best we can. And you really do let go of the opinions of others when you face death completely, like when you courageously. Yeah. And it doesn't mean you don't stop loving, but you stop caring about all the superficial stuff. And so you do learn to be more courageous because you realise, okay, this may or may not be received how if you're expressing some really deep vulnerability, it may or may not be received how you'd love it to be received, but it's better than not saying it. It's better than dying with the regret of having kept it inside, not sharing.

Yeah. The fourth one is I wish I'd stayed in touch with my friends. People miss lose out of touch with their friends a lot.

You think, well, this was before social media.

Yeah. And now you can like check in.

Yeah, yeah. And you know, checking in through social media and letting people know that you're there is fantastic. But it's never going to.

It's still superficial at a level. Right.

It's not the same as having a face to face conversation or a good laugh with your old friends or even A phone call is better than a social media thing or a text.

Right.

But yeah, it was a deep regret because friends become your family in so many ways and they hold a lot of memories for you as well. A lot of the fun memories that you may not necessarily have shared with your family. I mean some, some families are entwined and their brothers and sisters are their best mates but most of us have choose our own family of friends. And so yeah, friends can really bring home memories and do reminiscing because nostalgia.

And yeah, reflection, dying.

People want to live as long as they can and they want to reflect and they want to do some storytelling and some giggling and some reminiscing about the good old days. And if you lose touch with your friends, you're there with maybe, you know, a loving hearted carer and your adult kids or your young kids, whatever or no one, you know, you're just reflecting.

To yourself, having a conversation about the glory days or something. Yeah.

As opposed to what someone's saying, as you hear someone saying. And then you might only be able to handle a 10 minute conversation every few hours, but that 10 minute conversation can just, you know, I've seen people just lying there with tears of laughter in their eyes and they're just like, oh, I can't talk anymore, just give me a rest. But they're just so happy because they've had their friends visit and sharing those memories.

That's nice.

Yeah.

And I wish I'd let myself be happier. Why do we not allow ourselves to be happy?

I think a lot of it's probably worth, you know, we don't realise we deserve to be. We're shaped again by the opinions of others. Don't want to look a fool, don't want to be too silly and childish when that's actually great medicine to be like that. It's about the opinions of others and just realising we actually are allowed to be that. Just because someone says we're this and this and this and this doesn't mean we're any of that. Yeah. And so, you know, you're, you know, something I used to cop as a kid, you're never going to, you're a dreamer, you'll never amount to anything. You know, stuff like that.

You used to hear that.

Yeah, all the time from, particularly from my father. And that's encouraging. Oh, that's not, that's like 1%. That's okay though. That's okay. We healed as best we could. But I did take that on for a long time because whenever I'd have these dreams. I'd think, well, I'm never going to amount to anything. And I was a singer, songwriter. I started playing when I was 35, wrote my first song and I'd be up on the stage and I'd be playing and I just, that's all I'd hear in my head. You know, you're a dreamer. This is never going to amount to anything. And I'd just shake and just dream of walking off the stage. And then eventually I did my own healing and realized, well, that's his stuff, that's his regrets. And it's really got nothing to do with me. And if I'm not going to dream, I'm not going to ever get anywhere. You've got to be a dreamer. You have to dare to dream. And it's only the dreamers that really make huge, significant, beautiful change in the world that shake up things. That's it.

That's it. And if there was an additional regret, what would it be like another top regret, like a sixth one or the missing regret?

Yeah.

Or maybe something you've seen over the last six years.

It's about kindness. Like don't underestimate the power of kindness to ourselves and to each other. Because there was a lot of self loathing with the dying people and you see it in living themselves up constantly and yeah, and regret is just a very harsh judgment of ourselves. I've learned to look back on what I could call regrets and see them now with compassion and think, okay, well that's who I was back then. I'm going to love that broken person from who I am now. I'm not going to judge her with regret. I'm going to love her and think, you did the best as who you were then. So I would say the sixth regret would possibly be not learning the power of kindness.

Because to yourself and others.

Yeah, to ourselves and to others. Because we can't only give it to others. It's really has to. The hardest bit is, you know, the hardest bit is not even giving it to ourselves, it's receiving it from ourselves.

Ooh, that's true.

You know, we can say I love you as much as you need to in the mirror to yourself or believe it, but to actually stop and think, okay, I'm actually going to receive this kindness and this love. That's a whole different kettle of fish.

Wow. Most of us do a bad job of receiving in general, receiving compliments, acknowledgement, love.

Yes.

We seem to like push it back on people or reject it and say, ah, it wasn't that big a deal. You know, when someone compliments us, what are we doing when we reject that love kindness from others or from ourselves, what are we saying?

Well, we're denying the pleasure of giving, you know, from someone else. Yes. We're denying them the pleasure. We're disregarding the love and the quality of words and intention that they're giving us. So that in itself is creating a wall and not actually leaving an open flow to say, okay, thank you, good on you, you know, I'll take that. And when we're doing it to ourselves and not receiving our own love ourselves, well, we're just keeping ourselves small and undeserving when we're, we're a part of God where we're a part of divinity and the grandness of infinite unconditional love. So we're disconnecting from that.

Wow. So be willing to receive. How does someone learn how to do that when they've conditioned themselves to never receive their whole life?

Well, like anything, you get better with practice, step by step. And even practicing in front of a mirror initially, if you can't do it in other ways, just stand there. And I can guarantee if you've never done it before, you'll cry your eyes out. You know, if you're standing in front of a mirror and giving yourself love and then trying to receive it, you know, you'll have a good cry. Your heart will crack.

Yeah, exactly. You know, if you're willing to do.

It, if you will be willing. Yes.

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With patients who were dying?

About eight years.

Eight years?

Yeah.

And then after those eight years you decided you wanted to have your own child. Is that right?

In between that and my daughter, I set up a songwriting program in a women's jail and I taught songwriting for about a Year in a women's jail.

After you were done with the eight years of working?

I wanted to be where there was some hope and because, you know, obviously with dying, they may find their peace, but these were people whose bodies were closing down. So I wanted to work where I could actually give hope and potentially change lives that way.

How long did you do that for?

Not quite a year. Yeah, through one of my patients. I got some funding through one of my patients. A friend of one of my patients patient was a really hard woman, and this friend of hers said, if you can look after her, you can do anything. I'm going to find the funding for you.

Wow.

So she helped me find the funding. It took us a while to get the money, and then I approached a jail and they said, sure. So I was like a volunteer in their eyes. And so I did it for about a year, and then I burnt out. You know, after giving and giving and giving and. Yeah, burnout, big time. Became suicidally depressed for a while. And then as I started coming through that and got bored of being a victim and bored of being depressed and was healing, that's when my work just exploded. And then, yeah, then I started having.

A dream that you were you writing or your books.

I was blogging. I was blogging and I'd already written during the depression. Yeah, I wasn't brave enough to say I was depressed while I was blogging.

Sure.

I was just blogging about beautiful things I was noticing and finding the beauty in each day. And then there just came a time where I remember just saying to life, I'm over this. I just. I'm ready to get back into life. Like, help me find a way to get back into life. And the article, regrets of the Dying, that I'd written six or seven months earlier and had hardly been noticed, it just exploded.

Then all of a sudden, it took off.

Somehow it just took off.

Someone caught it and shared it.

Someone in Harvard Business Review shared it. And then the Financial Times in London slammed it because they said, don't tell us not to work too hard. You know, a man's identity is wrapped up. Da, da, da. And I was like, well, don't shoot the messenger. These are dying people who have said this. This isn't just some, you know, young woman in Australia living on a farm, not knowing anything. And so from that, it sort of went from one place to another. Then I kept having a dream that I. A little girl kept saying, hurry up, I want to come through. And I had the same dream two or three times, and at the time I was 43, I'd written off the decision to have a child and then I met my child's father. We, I was 44 when we conceived. The second month we tried and became a first time mum at 45.

Wow.

Yeah. And in between that time, my article, I was approached by an agent in America who signed me to write a book, the Top Five Secrets for Dying, that was rejected 25 times.

You published it yourself then, is that what happened?

Yes. So I just thought, oh well, I.

Put it up there on Amazon or whatever.

Yeah. And then it took off because the article was still going viral. And then the Guardian in the UK called the book heart wrenching and it made a really prominent page of the Guardian. And I didn't know any of this because I was just about to have a baby and I knew it was taking off because the interview requests started coming in and foreign rights requests started coming in.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

Like, oh, it's nice checks coming in here.

Yeah, yeah, well, potentially, because I didn't know what to do with it and I was just saying, look, we'll get back to you sometime, you know, so created a new file, you know, foreign rights inquiries, chuck them all in there. And then I was in hospital in labour and getting really harassed for interviews.

Wow.

You know, I was trying to get as much out of the way before the baby came. I was in labour and so I was, you know, doing this and I did a few voice ones. Not many people who somehow found my phone number and just caught me, you know, and so I'd be doing this interview and just like, yeah. And then this happened. Da, da, da. Can you just hold on a sec? Okay, just hold on one sec, please.

Wow.

You know, going through that and then going back and so I closed my computer about 11, 11:30 at night and I just sent out a very clear prayer, a bit more of a demand really, and just said, send me some help. Now it had taken me 14 years to become an overnight success. So from when I first started doing photography and writing inspirational quotes, this is before the Internet, like years before that. And then doing the singer songwriting thing and then writing the blog and then writing the book. So. But I was ready to quit because I was about to become a mum. I knew there was no second chance. I was 45, there wasn't going to be a second baby. And so I just sent out a really strong prayer and said, send me some help and send it now because I'm going to quit on this work. I don't care how important it is, how much I've worked on it. I'm going to be present for my baby. And the next morning, I had my baby, Eleanor. And then I was back in the room and my mum was there and some hospital staff flapping around and whatever. And then my phone rang and it was Leon from Hay House in Australia. And he just said, hi, Bronnie, you know, it's Leon. Everyone's flat, it was so busy in there, and the dinner lady wanted to put down the plate, and I still had my computer out with the baby on my boob. And, you know, it was just like. And the phone's ringing. It was just crazy. Yeah, I just. He said, we want to offer you an international publishing deal for the Top five Regrets of the Dying. And I dispersed into tears and said, look, the answer's yes, but I. I've got to call you back, you know, I've got to attend to my baby. And he said, oh, how old's your baby? I said, I just had her. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, yeah. So I rang him later that day. So within, you know, within 12 hours of my baby being born, I birthed a book. A book as such, and left the hospital with a publishing contract and a beautiful little girl. And because I had all those inquiries from the foreign rights thing, I just sent all of those straight away to Hay House. And my book is the fastest foreign rights seller in Hay House history.

Wow. How many different.

29 languages with a film in the pipeline.

Wow.

Yeah. So, you know, just amazing from a blog and a book rejection, you don't know. You gotta keep going.

You gotta keep going.

Yeah.

Wow. And then this new book just came out recently. It's called Bloom.

Yes.

What's the premise behind why you wanted to do this new book and what's the lessons you've learned from.

Sure. Well, they're both memoirs, and I certainly didn't intend to write a second memoir. I had to share a lot in five regrets that I didn't really want to, but did. But the book just came through me. My dad had just died and I took a few months off from work. Not because I was devastated. Dad and I had healed really well. And I felt really very grateful for our relationship ending the way it did, because there were no regrets, but because I just gave myself a few months off as an excuse, this book just went voom. And came through. And so just after my daughter was born, I basically had three things happen together. A baby, a book deal, and then I was diagnosed with rheumatoid. Arthritis immediately following her birth.

Right arthritis?

Yeah, like within. Within a month.

How did that happen? Why do you think?

Well, there were signs of it beforehand. Well, I guess life just wanted me to get to know myself even better and truly heal. And so it is common for women in their 40s after they have a baby. And I used to get aches and pains whenever I'd go back to my hometown. So I know there was some sort of pain, residual pain there.

But you hadn't healed yet.

Yes. Interesting. Yeah. So I just had to go into a journey of surrendering. And things hadn't worked out with my daughter's biological father, so I was actually a solo mum almost immediately. Well, from when I birthed her. And I left the relationship when I was pregnant. And so, yeah, I was a single mum, 45. Couldn't even get up and down off a chair some days on my own. And, yeah, so I learned a lot about surrender and trust, self love, self care. Space. Especially space. That's probably been my greatest gift.

What do you mean by space?

Understanding the importance of leaving space and unplanned time. So not.

Not just being busy all the time.

Yeah. And allowing yourself to actually have. Have space. Not just like, okay, I'm gonna stay home and watch a movie. You know, I'm gonna allocate an hour and a half to watch this movie. That's important, too. But to actually have time with no plans, just to say, I'm gonna create some space now I'm just gonna have a day or two off from life. And I mean, I don't have a day or two off from life. I have a child. And we've got to eat and everything else, but with no plans and just see where things go. And it's through that stillness and that space that so often the answers that we're looking for just come through and give you shortcuts to what you're trying to do. And instead of trying to control every step of the way and have to know what every single step is, you know, we've got our goals and our plans, but to have. By creating space, I've found that I often jump two or three steps of what I thought I had to do. Because within that space, either an insight has come or I've ended up in a random conversation with someone and they've given me an answer I needed, or they know someone who knows someone who knows someone. Yeah. Just space and just how healing it is for. So healing for joy, just to. Just to allow yourself to, you know, be I was gonna say be a dag, like in Australia. It's like an unaffectionate word for uncool, silly sort of thing, you know? So to just hang out and just not have an adrenaline, enjoy life, be present, be absolutely Lewis.

So you had this autoimmune disease right after your daughter was born, and it's caused a lot of pain. How have you handled that over the last six years now since it's started more and more?

Well, it's been a love and hate relationship.

What do you love and hate about it?

Well, I hate that I can't currently play the guitar because my fingers don't bend the way they used to. That's my greatest grief, is that my music has been taken from me. But I don't lose hope on that either. And what I love is it's taught me how to be kind to myself and not have that I. Life's not a penance. We don't have to just keep doing it tough and doing it tough and doing it tough and to prove ourselves or to even be worthy of what comes our way. It's all well and good to say. Oh, they deserve it. They worked hard. You know, they worked their butt off for 20 years. Well, that's fine. They do deserve it. That's fine. But they also may have missed a lot of life in the meantime. So being ill has taught me that as long as you're doing the inner work and you're courageously being as vulnerable as you can and honoring your heart and being the best person you can as who you are called to be, not as who society thinks you should be, and that's letting go of all expectations. Then that's enough. That's enough. And life. Life will support that.

Yeah.

Wow.

What's the greatest lesson your daughters taught you?

Joy. Joy Just. Well, joy and worth. Because children just love you so unconditionally. And to actually allow yourself to receive that and realise, like, why would someone love me this much? Like, doesn't she really know that I've got this fault or this fault or this fault, whatever. But they don't. They just. They're just so giving and forgiving and. But joy, because she is. She's full of joy. She's a very strong personality. She's. I'm deeply introverted. She's deeply extroverted. She's very smart, but also highly sensitive, so she naturally commands a lot of attention. But within that. Yeah, she's just fun. She is so fun.

Great.

Yeah, it's fantastic.

Do you think life is going to have a lot of pain no matter what we do. Do you think we're going to experience a lot of pain throughout life or does it not have to be so painful?

You know, it's a great question. I'd like to say it doesn't have to be so painful and I do believe that it doesn't have to be so painful. I do believe that. But to bring ourselves to a point where we can allow ourselves for it not to be painful is painful.

How so?

Well, we have to give up all our resistance. We have to give up all our conditioning. We have to find the courage to really honour who we are and be ourselves. And that is where the pain comes in. It's not because life necessarily wants to force us to suffer. It's because we've just got so much resistance to who and fear of who we could actually be. Change and evolving and our potential as well, to actually shine and be as radiant and amazing as we're capable of being.

You talk about breaking through upper limits in bloom. What are we afraid of breaking through most?

Well, I think it's about learning to allow in more increased happiness because that's.

One of the big regrets is we don't allow ourselves to be happy.

Yes. Yeah. And there will be contrast. I mean, there will be pain because we can't grow and realize our blessings if we don't have the contrast. And the contrast gives us a mirror of what to be grateful for. Yes. Yeah. But just as when life gets the hardest it's ever become for you and you think, I cannot take any more pain, I'm at the bottom here, this is it. I cannot take any more pain. It's the same at the top. We get up to a certain point and we don't know how to allow in more joy or more happiness. And so it's a process, a layer by layer process to chip away at those upper limits and say, actually I'm allowed to be this happy. It doesn't matter how I'm perceived. If I'm walking down the street skipping with my six year old. Yeah, goofy. That's a good word, goofy. It doesn't matter how people see me because more often than not, people laughing, you know, there's some level of other observers are sort of wishing they could do that themselves. Yeah, yeah. But that doesn't matter anyway because you don't care because you're just being goofy.

And they're gonna die, I'm gonna die. So let's just enjoy our lives.

I know. And we're all so beautiful and broken and fragile and amazing and brilliant. We've got all of that within us, but it takes a lot of courage to actually let it through.

Who are the most courageous people that you worked with during this eight year time? Did you see people become more courageous or.

Yeah, probably a patient. I write about Rosemary. She. She had been in a physically violent marriage when she was younger. She's from a different generation entirely, so she stayed within that for the sake of the family. And then eventually she divorced and it was a scandal, complete scandal to her family. And so she never married again, never had another relationship and just worked her way up the corporate ladder. In the times when no women were working their way up the corporate ladder and she dead, she didn't realise that she deserved happiness and she was an ogre to work with to start with. She was shocking and really bossy, like mean. Mean, cruel, personal. Yeah. Really not at all pleasant. But she evolved over a few months and I think she's probably the most courageous because she didn't realise that she could actually be happy and that she was allowed to be happy and. And she had such a dry sense of humour. But I didn't even see that for the first month or so and then it started coming out and then there would be little giggles and. This is a woman who told me to stop humming because I'm too happy.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. I was just humming a song one day and. Stop that. You're always so happy. Why are you like that? Yeah. And by the end of it, she was ridiculous and goofy and wonderful.

Humming with you.

Yep. Yeah. So I would say she's probably the most courageous because she dared to give it a go. Yeah.

It seems like some of these individuals get to a place of acceptance and they find inner peace at the end of their life. Some of them do, some of them don't.

Yes.

How do you think we can find inner peace now if we're not dying so soon again?

Face the fact that we're going to die honestly, it changes everything. If we as a society and as individuals could speak more about death and realise that we are going to die, then we just. It just changes everything in terms of how sacred our time is. And so it gives you courage. It just. Well, it has for me, where I just think I'm going to die one day. I'm not going to live with the pain of regret. I don't have all the time in the world. I'm in my 50s now, but I could, you know, my taxi driver on the way here. His wife died a year ago. She felt sick at 8 o' clock at night. She was 43. She was dead at 10 o' clock at night from a heart attack and left himself and two teenage children. So, you know, I'm in my 50s, I can sort of think, oh, great. Three of my grandparents lived till their 90s. I've got another 40 years. Years I'll be right. You know, but that's not the way it works.

It could be any day.

It can be today. You know, you could be the last lovely face I see. You know, we don't.

Hopefully you wouldn't regret that.

But we don't know and we need, we really need to see that. Time is a gift. It's. It's a resource that is decreasing every single moment that we're alive. We don't have all the time in the world to follow our dreams, to tell people we love how we feel, to honour our own heart, to shine, to be who we're here to be. We don't have all the time in the world. We're on limited time that's running out and in a way that can be terrifying. And I don't mean to be like a doomsday person, but that's the guts of it, that's the truth, that we are on limited time. And the more you can truly incorporate that into your way of thinking, the more it frees you. Yeah.

Is there anything that you aren't doing that you know, you should be doing through these regrets and all these lessons you've learned? Is there? Are you not being kind to yourself? Are you not, you know, doing what you really want to do? Or is there anything that you're still not doing personally?

Yeah.

Even though, you know, these are the main things?

Yeah, sure.

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Parent that's my biggest lesson in self kindness now because at the end of each day I can think of things every single day that I wish I had have done better, did wrong.

Like I'm a bad parent, I did this wrong. Every parent feels that way, right?

Like, am I screwing up my child? You know, all that sort of thing. And then I stop and listen to her speaking to her friends and saying, oh, it's okay, it's just the way it is. You've got to be kind, you know. And I hear my words coming out in a six year old conversation and I think, actually, Mama, you're doing a really good job. And so for me, that's probably one of my biggest lessons, to forgive myself on a daily basis and understand that mistakes are a part of life. And I teach this to my daughter all the time. It's human to make mistakes and it's only through mistakes that we learn.

That's it. Yeah, you don't learn from all the successes. You learn from the mistakes, the losses, whatever it may be.

Yeah. And other people may tell you stuff, but you'll remember more from your own mistakes.

Who do you think now is the most important people for you to listen to, to get wisdom?

Mm. It's not a person. It's nature. Yeah. I find that nature is my biggest teacher. And my daughter or any child, she's.

A force of nature.

She is a force.

Ay.

Well done. She is a force of nature. Absolutely. Holy dooley.

What does nature teach you when you listen to it?

Well, it just shows me to let go. That things like you sit by a creek and you see that. That the water's gonna get stuck in some parts, it's going to flow in other parts, and it just teaches you about everything, about life. You see a leaf falling. Okay. It's falling, but it's twirling. It doesn't know where it lands, but it's not resisting. Or the wind blowing a breeze on your face. It's like, okay, there's gentleness or there's. It might be a gentle breeze or a gale force wind. And life is like that. I think more than anything, it teaches me surrender and trust just to know that it's actually all unfolding perfectly if I don't become that boulder that stands in the way of it. And if I just get out of my own way. Yeah.

Yeah. Allowing it, not resisting.

Yes. Yeah.

To what's happening in life.

Yes. There's a song that I wrote on my second album, and there's a line in it that says, what you want, wants you to, but get out of your own way and let it come through, you know? And I think that that is probably what nature teaches me again and again, that I've been trying too hard and that there's a natural flow for things and it knows perfectly how to unfold. I've got to do my bits to support it, but then I've got to.

Get out of the way, let it flow. I like that. Huh? How has your relationship with vulnerability changed over the years?

We've become friends. Yeah.

You've embraced it.

Yes. I actually find it as well. It's very freeing. But more than anything, it's a gift to incorporate it into your being. So the more you practise it again, you get better with practice. So the more vulnerable I've learned to be, even through writing my books to strangers, not knowing how they're going to be perceived at all or which is much harder, being vulnerable to people that you care about and you love. That's harder than writing a book to strangers. I think you just get better with practice. And so for me, it's a part of who I am now. And it's fine to be vulnerable, it's fine to be broken, it's fine to not be perfect because we're all the same. And if some of us don't dare to give that example, how are those without the courage going to find the courage to do so?

That's true. You've got to lead with vulnerability.

Yes.

Yes.

And what do you do now when you feel overwhelmed?

Well, I'm a meditator, so I meditate. That's almost always my first go to. I ride a push bike a lot. And it's only through being sick with rheumatoid arthritis that I ended up on a push bike because I couldn't do the long distance walking that I used to do. And. And now I love riding my bike.

That's cool.

So if I'm overwhelmed more than anything, I'd probably just go for a ride on my bike. That's good. Yeah.

Let the stress out, let the worry out.

Yeah. Get some movement in. And most of the rides I do are beside rivers and creeks and stuff, so it's very beautiful.

Nature and movement.

Yes.

Two powerful things can't go wrong. This is a question I ask for everyone at the end, called the three Truths. Okay, so imagine it is your last day. And you in the future, sometime you get to choose the day. And you leave this earth when you want to.

You're right.

And you've achieved everything you want. You've seen your daughter grow up in the way you want to see, and everything's happened the way that it's supposed to.

Okay, so you're ready to go.

You're ready to go. You're not regretting anything. You've lived your work like some of us struggle doing sometimes. Right.

You've written many other books.

You've done everything you want to do. Everything you want to do has happened.

But for whatever reason, you've got to.

Take all of your work with you so no one has access anymore to the work. You've taken it with you. But you got to write down three final truths, the lessons that you know to be true about life that you would share with everyone. And this is all they would have.

Access to, that legacy. Just three things.

Three truths.

Yes.

And they wouldn't have this anymore or anything else. Your music, it would go with you, but this is what it would have. It would stay forever. Okay, what would you say are your three truths?

I'd say if you've done your best, then there's no reason for regret because that's all you can do. I'd say that if you're lost, go and hang out in nature. If you're hanging out in nature and you're still lost, double the time that you're spending in nature. And I would say that courage is always rewarded. It's not usually rewarded in the way that we expect or might try and dictate, but in my experience, courage is always rewarded.

Wow. I don't think I've heard those three. Those are good. I like those.

I like those.

It's a great truth. Okay, where can we connect with you online or your site or social media?

Yep. Bronnieware.com is my website.

Beware, beware.

Watch it.

Beware of inspiration coming your way.

Yes, that's right. Your life's about to change. Bronnieware.com and you know, I have a six week online course which is about creating a regret free life. So putting all these tools into play, that's cool. I am on social media on Facebook and Instagram. Bronnie.ware. i'm not huge on it. Well, just because it's not a language that's natural to me. And part of living a regret free life means when I'm there, I'm completely there and present and authentic. But I'm not going to post because something's expected of me or because that's the system or whatever. I have a very personal and loving relationship with my audience. But considering my book's reached a million people, it doesn't necessarily reflect in social media. But yeah, Bronnie Ware, I'm there.

Bronnie Ware.

Bronnie Warehouse on Instagram and Facebook.

Yes, and Facebook, Twitter as well.

No, I never got around.

Never got on there. No worries.

No, it wasn't visually nice enough for me.

Now you can add photos and videos.

But yeah, but I don't want to spend any more time online.

I hear you. Yeah, I hear you.

Awesome.

Make sure you guys check out the.

Book, the new book, it's called Bloom.

Make sure you guys check this out. I like this format a lot because it's quicker chapters to read and like more powerful lessons quickly. So for me, I like that.

But also the top five regrets of the dying.

If you guys don't have this, I'm assuming most of you do go get this powerful stuff. Check out the website, social media course, all those things. I want to acknowledge you, Bronnie, for doing the hard things because I think the life that you've had, the work that you've been through, I don't think most people would choose. But because you chose to do those things and serve people when they were dying and also continue to write about their legacy, it's impacting a lot of people today who maybe have more time.

Yes.

So I really acknowledge you for going through all of it and for being vulnerable with your daughter, with the challenges you've had with your health and for continually opening up.

Thank you. Thank you, Lewis. And thank you for what you're doing in the world. My goodness, you bring so much heart to your work.

Do my best.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's my non regret is I do my best. So thank you. My final question for you is what's your definition of greatness?

Happiness, Living the life that makes the most sense to you regardless of how you're perceived by others.

Bronnie Ware, thank you so much.

My pleasure.

Appreciate it.

Appreciate you.

There you have it, my friends. Powerful interview and insights with Bronnie Ware. Make sure to share this with your friends. Lewishouse.com 737 as we go get closer to the end of the year, my next interview and episode, full length episode, will be me interviewing myself doing a solo round talking about the greatest lessons for me of 2018, the greatest lessons of the year for me, the biggest regrets that I have, the things I'm going to be looking forward to for, for next year. And I want to share it all with you. I want to share what I've learned, what's working well, what's not working well, business, business, life, health, relationships, all that good stuff. So stay tuned for that episode. If this is your first time here, make sure to subscribe. Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, we come out with the most powerful interviews and insights to help you unlock your inner greatness. Brett Favre said you're never guaranteed about next year. People ask about what you think of next season. You have to seize the opportunities when they're right in front of you. You, you're at a season of your life right now. You're about to start a new season. You're about to go into your life with full energy and full impact. Life is a contact sport, my friends, and you've got to be seizing every single moment that you have. Yes, you're going to make mistakes. Not every action you take is going to work in your favor, but it will end up working in your favor when you reflect on it. When you learn when you grow and when you continue to move forward in the pursuit of your dreams. I love you so very much and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.

Sam.

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