The Regrets of the Dying
6 Jun 2025 · 22 min
In this solo episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast, host Rob Dial explores the five most common regrets reported by people near death, as documented in the book The Five Regrets of the Dying. After a series of sponsor reads, Dial introduces the premise: understanding these regrets can help listeners avoid repeating them. He walks through each regret in turn, sharing anecdotes and quotes from the book’s nursing author and from real‑life examples (e.g., a man who worked himself to death, a Holocaust survivor who never expressed his feelings, a woman named Grace who lived inauthentically). For each regret he offers reflective commentary, practical challenges (e.g., sending a voice note to a distant friend, making a list of things that bring happiness), and motivational calls to action. The episode closes with a reminder to subscribe, rate, and share the podcast, plus a promotion of Dial’s coaching programs at mindsetmentor.com. Throughout, the host weaves personal insights, motivational language, and actionable steps aimed at helping listeners live more authentic, balanced, emotionally open, socially connected, and happier lives.
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Welcome to today's episode episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you love this podcast, do me a favor, give us a rating and review. However you listen to us, the more positive ratings and reviews we get, the more that those platforms like Spotify and Apple podcasts show this to people who have never listened to it before, which allows this podcast to grow and for us to impact more people. So if you do that, I would appreciate it. Today I'm going to be talking about the five most common regrets of people who are dying on their deathbed. Sounds morbid, I know, but I really want to go over this so that you can understand the most common regrets so that hopefully you can avoid these regrets to create the life that you want. And this comes from a book that's called the Five Regrets of the Dying. And it comes from a lady who was a nurse and cared for people as they were terminally ill. And so over a period of eight years she started noticing very common regrets when people would come in like they knew they were going to die, there was no way out of it. And so they start to confess to her and to say things to her that they've never said to anybody before because they get to the point they feel like they need to get it off their chest. And it's a really great book to learn from, to not make the same mistakes as well. One of the things that Tony Robbins says is success leaves clues. And I believe that, like, if you want to be successful and you don't need to reinvent the wheel, it's also the same thing when you look at this, where I think failure also leaves clues. And I don't want to call these people's lives failures. That's not what I mean by that. But obviously, if they had regrets, very, very common regrets at the end of their life, well, then I should be looking at that. We should be looking at that and going, hmm, noted. I've got this. I want to make sure I make adjustments in my life so that I don't have that regret at the end of my life. So let's dive into it. Regret number one, the most common regret, which is not really surprising to me with the line of business that I'm in, but the most common regret is, I wish I lived a life that was true to myself and not the life that other people expected from me. I wish I lived a life that was true to myself and not the life that other people expected me. This was the most common one that she saw. And it shows you that most people live lives that they think their parents want from them, that they think society wants from them. They're just trying to fit in. And in turn, what they're doing is they're molding and changing themselves into somebody else that's not their true self. They don't follow their passions because they're too afraid of what other people may say or might think about them. The main regret is not having lived a life that was true to themselves. Man, like, that's really, really sad to think about, isn't it? And if you listen to this podcast for a while, I always talk about, you know, through childhood, how we become who we are, how we break away from our true self so that we can basically get our parents love and have that. That connection with our primary caregivers. But a lot of people don't reclaim their true self and start going on the path of their true self. Isn't that crazy if you really think about it? Like, if you just take a step back, I've done this. We've all done this. Isn't it crazy that we allow what other people think of us to come in the way of what we truly want in our lives? If you're driving to work, working a job that you hate simply because you thought this is what you're supposed to do or this is what your parents wanted you to do. I hope that you have a. This is your wake up call to go. I'm not going to die with this regret. I'm going to figure out what is that I want. I'm going to figure out who my true self is. I'm going to rediscover this true self and what my passions are. And I'm going to eventually make the transition to do the thing that I want. We have one life. We're floating on a tiny little rock through infinite amount of space and we let other people's opinions matter for what we do in this one life that we know that we get to live. There's 1, septillion stars in this universe that is a 1. I googled this because I wanted to figure out this number for you guys. A1 followed by 24 zeros. One septillion stars. We're in a universe with anywhere between 100 to 200 billion galaxies and we're sitting around worried about what other people think about us. Isn't that insane if you really think about it, like, it's time for you to, to do what you want to do to create the life that you want. Because it's crazy for us to continue to keep being worried about what somebody else will think about us. There was a lady that was named Grace that she talks about in the book that was passing away. And she was one of the ladies that lived a life that wasn't true to herself. And she said to her, and she quotes her in the book, live a life. Live true to your own heart. Don't ever worry about what others think. Promise me that before I die. And that's what she had said. So what can we learn from this? We need to learn to live life on our own terms. If people don't like who you are or what you want to do, if and you're not hurting anybody else, but you're just being truly yourself, to hell with them. I don't care who they are. Like, this is your one shot at this life. Do what you're passionate about, do what you want, do what lights you up, what's always in the back of your mind but you haven't had the courage to do. And there's that idea of like this, this quote of if you can't stop thinking about it, don't stop working towards it. You know, living for approval is like renting out your Soul at a discount. And nobody ever pays you back. So you've got to ask yourself, if nobody knew what I was doing with my life, would I still choose to do what I'm doing now? If not, what would you do? So that's number one. Number two, the second most common regret was, I wish I hadn't worked so hard. A lot of the ones she said that said this were older men. And although, you know, like, for me, I do talk about working really hard, working hard towards your dreams, there does need to be some form of balance. You know, when I first read this book about 10 years ago, I was like, this one, I was like, hardcore work, work, work, work, work. But there needs to be balance. You could put a lot of work into something in the first couple years so that it gives you a whole lot less work later on. And so, you know, she speaks about a man who worked hard for 15 years with a company to save up for his retirement so that he could travel with his wife. So he gets to the date where he's supposed to be retiring. He. And he's looking at his finances. He's like, yeah, I think we're good. He's like, you know what, honey? I'm going to do one more year, right? He worked really hard for 15 years, saved it for retirement. Him and his wife were ready to go travel. He said, I'm going to do one more year. He figured, you know, I worked 15 years. What's one more year? She waited his whole working life for him so he could finally retire. Three months before that final year was over, she died. He never got to travel with his wife. And so when he was sitting there on his deathbed, he was filled with all of this grief because all she wanted was time with him, and she never really got it. And there's a quote that's in the book. I'm going to read it to you. He says, I wish I hadn't worked so hard. I was a damn fool. I worked too damn hard. And I'm a lonely dying man. The chase of closing a deal became addicting to me. This wonderful woman waited so patiently for me to retire. And now, of course, as I sit here dying, I see that just being a good person is more than enough in life. Why do we depend so much on the material world to validate us? It's just the chase for more and the need to be recognized through our achievements and our belongings that hinder us from the real things in life, like times with loved ones, time doing things that we love to do. There's nothing wrong with loving what you do, but now I see it's really all about balance. So that was his quote. So when we look at this, what can we learn from this one? It's okay to love what you do and to work really hard with something that you're passionate about. But you've got to have some form of balance. Like you're not just trying to pay the bills and work and die. You're trying to actually live life. Like, why do you want to make money? Well, you want to make money so that you can experience life. What is it going to give you? What do you want to do with it? You know, and don't, I would recommend don't work hard for material things. Never let those things, like be in the driver's seat of your life, like cars and house and phones and all of those different types of things. Don't try to keep up with the Joneses. It's like in Fight Club. You know, they say Advertisement has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs that we hate so we can buy stuff that we don't need. You know, hustle's really cool and trendy until it empties you. And success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. Another thing that Tony Robbins says your family doesn't care about the trophies. They want your attention. In the future, the only ones that will remember how hard you worked will be your children. And the reason why would because you weren't around. And we will be right back. 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And now back to the show. So that's the second thing. Don't work so hard. Number three was most common was I wish I had the courage to express my feelings. So she gives an example of a man that she cared for who was a holocaust survivor. And at the end of his life he was really sad because he went through obviously the worst things in the world. So he put these walls up and he never really let anybody in his life in and his wife and his grandchildren, his children. So he kept this armor up all the time. And at the end of the life he was regretting that he never felt like he let his wife and kids really know who he was, and he regretted never really being vulnerable with them and letting his true self out. And so your feelings are valid. Your feelings need to learn to be expressed. You need to learn to be vulnerable. And vulnerability is not weakness. It's your personal truth without the armor up anymore. And most of us, I did this for years, just walk around like emotional tanks. We're just armored up. We've got all the armor up, and then we're not letting anybody in, and we're wondering why we feel kind of lonely. Well, it's because you've never let anybody in. You've had the armor up for so long. So, you know, if you died tomorrow, what part of you would die with your uns? Like, what. What would be unspoken? This love that you have for other people that you've had and you felt, but you've never actually said to them, or maybe grief that you've had that you've never fully expressed in any sort of way, or maybe you have massive amounts of gratitude for something or someone and you feel it, but you just never actually said it out loud. You need to get yourself to say it. You need to get yourself to feel it. Once again, vulnerability is not weakness. It is your truth without the armor. And so that's number three. Number four was, I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. The author had a lot of people that were towards the end of their lives start to realize that they work so hard and they. They lost touch with a lot of their friends that really mattered with them. They got too into the business and they got too into working and too into the family. And they were lonely at the end of their lives because they let those friends slip away. They got too busy, other things were going on, and they really regretted not keeping in touch with some of their friends, like their chosen family. And they let everyday life just kind of get in the way of it. And those relationships over years just kind of faded away. And they have these regrets of, like, I wish I would have spent more time with my friends. Not just my family, family 100%, but other people that you also love that are not your own blood. So what can you learn from this? I really think it's important for us to stay in touch with people who matter and not let you know, everyday life and being busy get in the way of relationships. And so I want you to think about this. Like, who's a friend that you miss that you haven't seen in a while. Maybe you've both been busy and you live in the same city. Maybe they moved to another city or maybe you moved to another city. Reach out to them and try to find some time to talk. Try to work on becoming close again, even if they live in a different state. And so my challenge to you is this. I want you to, before the end of the day, send a voice note to someone that you haven't spoken to in over six months. Don't overthink it. Just say that you miss them. And I will be 100% honest with you. As I was writing this, I did this exactly one of my friends I reached out to. I haven't seen this guy Justin in a little while. I had. I had lunch with one of my friends, Preston yesterday. Preston and I were talking about Justin. I was like, man, I haven't seen Justin in a while. I heard that he actually moved pretty close to me. So I was like, I'm going to send him a message. Tell them we should go catch up and go get some coffee. So that's my challenge to you, to do the exact same thing. I'm trying to eat my own dog food. If I'm telling you guys to do it, I got to make sure I'm doing it on my own. So that's number four and number five, which is kind of tragic. Number five was, I wish I let myself be happier. And this one can be challenging because, you know, with advertisements constantly telling us that we're not good enough or smart enough or thin enough or pretty enough or, you know, you don't have a nice enough car, a nice enough house, you're not good enough. It's easy to feel like you're never enough, but we have to learn to allow ourselves to be happy. The great thing is that happiness is a choice. It's not. And I don't mean that in some BS lofty fairy dust sprinkling phrase like, I mean, happiness is actually a choice. Happiness does not depend on circumstance. Happiness depends on perspective. And so we can allow ourselves to be happy, but by becoming grateful for what we already have and noticing what we already have and becoming grateful for the people that we already have in our lives and noticing those people in our lives as well. Gratitude's right in front of you. You just have to let yourself experience. And the byproduct of that gratitude is happiness. Realizing that we have enough is enough. Learning to love ourselves through self talk, Learning to talk to ourselves the right way, Learning to allow ourselves to be happy. Learning to allow ourselves to let go of the past, to let go of things that we cannot change because we know anything in the past. I can't change. And so how am I going to let something that I cannot change ruin my present moment right now? Let it go. Happiness is not about changing your life first. It's about changing your lens. You have to change your lens in some sort of way. So a lot of us, it's part of being a human. I think it's wired into our system. It's wired in our survival. And I also think that it's a part of our psychology that is exploited through advertisement. We're always, not always. We're almost always looking through this lens of lack, of not having enough, not being far enough, not creating whatever it is we want. And we go through this lens of lack, and it creates this feeling of scarcity. So when we can change our lens to thinking about gratitude, you'll start to notice that you do have enough. Could you always get more? Of course you could always get more. But happiness is right there waiting for you. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to make a list of everything that makes you happy. Write it all down. Write everything that makes you happy. It could be puppies. It could be ice cream. It could be going for a run, whatever it is. And I'm going to give you a tip that one of my friends gave me. He gave this, told me this quote one day, and he was going through, like this deep depression years ago, and he got himself out of this depression, and he said this quote. He said, I will not let my happiness or my depression be left up to chance. And what he did when he was depressed is he said what used to make me happy. And he made this massive list of all of these big things and tiny things that made him happy. And then what he said is he would wake up every single morning, he would look at the list of things that made him happy, and then he would ask himself, how can I do a couple of these things today? You know, if it's ice cream, okay, well, then I might get some ice cream at the end of work or after I get to my workout or whatever it might be. If it's, you know, going for a run, okay, well, then I'm going to prioritize going for a run in the morning. And he started putting these things in his life that he knew made him happy every single day. He would plan them out and put them in one or two of them, nothing crazy. And he started noticing he became happier because he stopped avoiding the things that made him happy. And so here's what I want you to think about. Which one of these regrets hits you the hardest and why? Think about it for a second. How can you make adjustments? You know, what will your life look like if you don't change and you end up regretting that thing at the end of your life as well? What will you miss out on? What dreams will you not be able to create? How would, like, how different would your life be if you decided, you know what I'm going to change this regret? What would you be able to accomplish? What would you do? What would your life look like? And what do you need to do this week to take the first step towards releasing that regret now so that you don't get to the end of your life and think, I wish I would have lived a life that true to myself or I wish I would have not worked so hard or I wish that I would have hung out with my friends more. What can you do this week to take the first step towards actually working towards not having that regret? So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories. Tag me obdialjr R O B D I A L J R Also, I get a lot of emails. If you guys want to learn more about how to do coaching with me, you can go to mindsetmentor.com so we can move just off the podcast to actually zoom calls that type of stuff. Go to mindset mentor.com I have stuff like mindset 2.0, mindset university where I do group calls, all of that weekly. So once again, mindset mentor.com and with that I'm going to leave the same way. Leave every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that
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