Life, Health & The Universe - A Podcast For The Midlife Rebel

Your To Die For Life: Karen Salmansohn on Living Fully Without Regret

• Host - Nadine Shaw - Gene Keys Guide, Astrologer, Human Design Enthusiast, Midlife Wellness Advocate • Season 15 • Episode 2

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Ever wondered what you’d regret if today was your last day? That question drives bestselling author and behaviour change expert Karen Salmansohn in her powerful new book Your To Die For Life. In this thought-provoking conversation, Karen reveals why death might just be your greatest life coach — and how embracing mortality can help us live more authentically, joyfully, and without regret.

After the loss of her father, Karen transformed from workaholic “beast mode” into balanced “best mode.” This awakening became the foundation for her revolutionary approach: creating a “to-die list” — daily practices aligned with your deepest values that prevent the most common regrets of the dying.

🌿 In this episode we explore:

  • Why mortality awareness is the ultimate catalyst for meaningful change
  • How identity-based habits connect to core values and create lasting transformation
  • The difference between “beast mode” productivity and “best mode” balance
  • Aristotle’s wisdom on living meaningfully and avoiding “near-life experiences”
  • The seven core values Karen identifies to minimize life’s regrets: Authenticity, Bravery, Curiosity, Discernment, Empathic Love, Fun, and Gratitude

Karen’s insights are a refreshing reminder that we don’t have to wait until the end of life to find closure. As she says, “We can be middle-of-life doulas for ourselves” — and start living a to-die-for life right now.

🎧 Listen now and discover how to embrace mortality as your greatest teacher, shift from productivity to purpose, and create a life you’ll be proud of when you look back.

Find Karen's Full Profile in our Guest Directory https://lifehealththeuniverse.podcastpage.io/person/karen-salmansohn

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Life, health and the Universe, bringing you stories that connect us, preventative and holistic health practices to empower us and esoteric wisdom to enlighten us. We invite you to visit our website, where you can access the podcast, watch on YouTube and find all of our guests in the guest directory. Visit lifehealththeuniversepodcastpageio. Now let's get stuck into this week's episode. If you're planning for the future and think that someday you'll take risks, pursue passions, deepen relationships and go on adventures, then it's a real possibility that someday won't ever come and that you'll wake up one day full of regret. Today, I'm joined by Karen Salmonson, bestselling author and behavior change expert, and she's here to talk to us about her recently released book You're to Die for Life how to maximize joy and minimize regret before your time runs out. Karen's going to teach us why thinking about our death is just the thing we need to start living more fully. Thank you so much for joining me, karen. I'm really excited about this conversation. I think it's very poignant for me.

Speaker 2:

Oh, good, well, I'm looking forward to it. I'm definitely looking forward to it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So let's start with the big picture, why you wrote this book. What's going on in our lives? Why do we have those experiences where we wake up and we're like, oh, I didn't get to do all of the things that I thought I would?

Speaker 2:

Well, it's funny, death is one of the last taboo topics we don't like to talk about. We'll talk about pretty much anything at this point and argue about it and everything, but you bring up death, and particularly one's own death. You know, not the death of war, the death of this, but like really personalize it and people run from it and our brains are built to run from it. There's actually something called terror management. They actually the word terror is attached to the idea of thinking about death, which is kind of ironic because we're the only species that gets the memo that we are going to die. And we could use that to our advantage, knowing that by making sure we do what we got to do, because we are notorious procrastinators and death is like the ultimate deadline, and without death we'd be saying, oh yeah, I'll write my novel in a millennium, or I'll tell him I love him in a few hundred decades from now. So death, when it's embraced in the proper way, is not morbid, it's motivating.

Speaker 1:

It's interesting because I've got my parents are in their 70s but they've just started talking about, you know, writing their will and what happens if they are. You know they become unwell and they need someone to start managing their things for them, but it still feels like there's a slight kind of disconnection with that. It's actually a real thing. You know, when I die I'll leave you these things and this will happen, but yeah, there just still does definitely feel like there's a disconnect with it.

Speaker 2:

I know we say life is short, but it becomes kind of white noise, Like we think of it as like just something you put on a bumper sticker or embroider on a pillow. Life is short, you know. But when you experience up close and personal the death of somebody you love, you finally get it. Oh, life is short, Like it sounds different to you. You know we're here and then we're not and it's up to us to make the here part as meaningful as possible. And something really powerful happens when you understand that, instead of being afraid to be your full self, afraid to speak up and share from your heart, afraid to pursue your passions, you become afraid of the idea of getting to the end of your life and dying with that music still inside of you. So I say death is a great life coach because it motivates you. Mortality awareness creates urgency and urgency sparks action.

Speaker 1:

You had your own experience, didn't you? That's really been the kind of initiator of this journey and exploration of death and what it means. Yes, Can you talk to us a little bit about that and what happened and how it sort of changed the way you looked at your death?

Speaker 2:

shall we say? Well, I say I wrote the book for two reasons, and one is a little sad. I'll start with that one. One is a little bit more quirky and I'll get into that one too. But I wrote the book because my dad died. At this point it was about 20 years ago and I've been wanting to write this book for 20 years. So when he died, that was a big wake up call to me and I started to really accept that life is finite, the rug can be pulled at any time, and I became very aware that I was sad that he wasn't ever going to get to see me as a mom because, I wasn't a mom yet.

Speaker 2:

I was at that point in my life a little bit of a workaholic.

Speaker 2:

I was like in beast mode and, interestingly enough, one of the top regrets of the dying is I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

Speaker 2:

And actually I'll get to that because I reverse engineered every one of the top regrets of the dying and came up with a plan to make sure I didn't wind up with those regrets. But one of mine at that moment that I became very aware of is oh my God, I'm working so hard, I haven't started a family yet. My dad's never going to see me as a mom, never going to meet a kid that I have, and that really made me sad and I decided that I wanted to work less and I wanted more balance. Instead of beast mode, I wanted what I call best mode, which I explain more in the book, and it's about balance and not being such a slave to productivity and all of that. And in fact my father's death woke me up to wanting to have a kid more than my biological clock, you know, because I realized I don't have much time, I don't even know like what am I doing here?

Speaker 2:

you know, and isn't that interesting note my dad died on August 27th and four years later my son was born on August 27th, which I'm not very woo-woo, but I kind of like perk up when I see something like that and I feel like that's my dad winking at me. You know, good going. I say you're a mom. Good going, Karen.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's really beautiful.

Speaker 2:

But I made a lot of other changes too, and one of the things that I did was I gave my father's eulogy and after I gave my father's eulogy, I started thinking about, like, what do I want in my eulogy, what do I want people to say and what is the mission for my life? It's interesting we write mission statements for businesses, but we don't write mission statements for our life, and that's really what a eulogy is. And so I really got quiet and thought about what I wanted my eulogy to be, and I noticed a gap between what I was doing now and what aspirational eulogy me was up to. And so I looked at current me and I looked at aspirational eulogy me and I thought what are the bridge habits that I need to do to become aspirational eulogy me?

Speaker 2:

And in my book I have a fill-in-the-blank Mad Libs type template to help people to write their own eulogy me. And in my book I have a fill in the blank Mad Libs type template to help people to write their own eulogy. Because a lot of people aren't going to sit down. I understand that there's like a creepy crawly feeling about it. So I take some of that creepy crawly out and have the Mad Libs template. And I say Mad Libs, they're not associated.

Speaker 2:

I don't want to get into trouble saying that but ad-libs type template and a little spoiler here, a lot of the blanks have to do with core values, and I started to think about what makes for a meaningful life, and really it's about embracing core values and then acting upon that. So at your own funeral someday in the very, very far away future, god willing, the stories people are going to tell are linked to core values and what you did oh, she was so kind. I remember the time she did this, or she was so patient, or she was so supportive and it's going to be a story that was inspired by a core value and that's how you're going to be remembered. We're all stories that are inspired by core values. And so I started thinking about this more and the importance of becoming aware of your core values and the importance of becoming aware of your core values, and so then I developed a little system where I don't just write my to-do list every day, because a to-do list has a fatal flaw.

Speaker 2:

A to-do list is just about productivity and you could do everything on your to-do list, check off every box, be a very good girl about checking off everything on your to-do list and then get to the end of your life and feel like you wasted your time, because the goal of life is not to be productive. The goal of life is to have deep, meaningful relations and have meaningful experiences to being of service, give back and becoming your best possible self. So I also write what I call my to die list, and my to die list is inspired by actually seven core values which I can get into and habits that I can do around those, and they're all linked to the top regrets of the dying. I don't say a lot, but it's all-.

Speaker 1:

No, no, keep going, keep going.

Speaker 2:

I reversed the top regrets of the dying and I realized that if you embrace these seven core values, you will minimize regret in your life and you won't. Chances are you won't have those regrets if you embrace these core values and then do habits related to them. That's part of the system of the book.

Speaker 1:

Your book was just released last week, right, I bought it, so I've started reading it and I got to the eulogy piece and I started going beyond that. I was reading beyond that before stopping and doing the eulogy piece, but I thought I'm not going to go too far without actually doing the eulogy piece and I haven't written my own, but I've started writing down some of the things that I want to be remembered for and some of the things that are valuable in my life. I just took some notes and it was really interesting because, well, firstly, there was a little bit of there could have been some avoidance, like I'm just going to read the whole book and then I'll come back to that bit, and I was like, no, that's not the point. But also, even though I haven't written my eulogy, I've written those core values and I've started thinking about it and how that's you talk about that. We're seeing the gaps in your life.

Speaker 1:

Yes, friendship is a really important thing for me. I want to be remembered well by my friends, but I don't often take enough time to be with friends, like I'm too busy, you know, there's too many other things going on, and so, like, interestingly, I've made I've already started to make that more of a priority. You know, catching up with people sending someone a message that I care about. It's really interesting how those just bringing awareness to those things can actually start to change your habits. But I'm really keen to hear more about how you you're a behavior change specialist, right, that's you you do that. So you kind of integrated that kind of habit forming behavior into this really kind of deep, meaningful work. So I'm really keen to hear more about that.

Speaker 2:

Sure, and I want to say something. When I wrote the book, I intuited that some people might stop to write their eulogy. So I went in and I wrote last minute I made the publisher stop the presses, you know, not literally, but I did add a big paragraph beforehand. I don't know if you saw it because I knew that there might be people like you would say I need to stop and write the eulogy. And I said you can still move forward and read the whole book. Writing the eulogy is optional, just like wearing pants is optional while reading this book, you know, or something like that. I want you to know that you can still. If anybody's hearing this and they're like well, I don't want to run a eulogy or whatever it is, I think, yes, you will get more benefits if you do, but there's so much other stuff in the book that I just want to state that that's not. You don't have to like, you don't have to stop and do it. You can still keep going forward.

Speaker 1:

So I just want you to know that personally, yes, yes, yes, I thought I just felt for me I did keep going beyond it, but I just thought if I get too much further, then that might. Yes, yes, it was like it was kind of the niggling avoid. You know, am I avoiding it? So I'm just going to do it, even if I just start. And it was kind of interesting yeah, what it what it brought up and just taking that time to think what are those things that are really important to me.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and I love that you're already thinking like, if you just get the broad strokes even you realize meaningful relationships are like the heart and soul of a meaningful life. You know, and that's why with top regrets of the dying are, I wish I didn't work so hard, I wish I had spent more time with my friends, I wish I had allowed myself to be happier, I wish I had been more true to myself. But a lot of them are around meaningful relationships. A lot of the top regrets are dying. So just even acknowledging that piece and that's why your to-die list might have something different on it than a to-do list Once you realize that relationships are such a cornerstone of a meaningful life, you might. Relationships are such a cornerstone of a meaningful life, you might sit down and I do have my seven top core values that I recommend because I also understand that I've been thinking about this for a long time, so my brain is more marinated on like what are some good core values? But somebody that's just reading this fresh they might have like a block and I don't know what my core values are, and I understand that and that's why I offer these seven core values. So if you are sort of blocked in knowing. I recommend the starter kit of the seven core values that I share. But once you realize that meaningful relationships are important and that's the core value of loving or empathic love then you look at your core values in the morning and I have a couple of different ways that you can do it with the eulogy or without the eulogy and you think, okay, what can I do today to improve and strengthen my relationships? And you kind of think in your head like, oh, my one friend is going through a divorce. I need to check in with her. Maybe I need to bring her a casserole or whatever it is you know. Or oh, I remember so-and-so said they were going to have a you know doctor's visit. They had something they were worried about. Let me check in, like things that in your busyness you might not remember. And so if you take the time to intentionally even brainstorm new things but these are the more important things A to-die list is sort of like a to-do-what-matters-most list and it's inspired by your core values and you can ask yourself questions like who do I need to become to get everything I want in my life?

Speaker 2:

Or who do I need to become to stop fighting with my 14-year-old son so much? Or who do I need to become to feel closer to my 93-year-old mother? Or who do I need to become to write that novel, to run that marathon? And the answer is going to be core values first and foremost. I need to work on my patience, I need to work on my listening, I need to work on my communication, I need to work on and it's always going to be linked to some core value that you might need to strengthen, especially where you have the problems in your life, if you go backwards and realize if you embraced a specific core value that could help you with some of the challenges in your life.

Speaker 1:

Okay, could you give an example of that sort of thing? Like you coach people, don't you? And work with them with this specific strategy life death strategy what might someone have as a challenge and how might they try to improve or become more of the core value or live more of the core value?

Speaker 2:

Okay, I'll share a story from my own life. Okay, and that is after my son was born, I had what I called my pregnancy weight. I had what I called my pregnancy weight. Only it wasn't really pregnancy weight because my son was about two or three years old at the time. I was still referring to the weight that I'd gained as pregnancy weight, but it was really my I eat too much crappy food weight and I didn't really know how to fix that. For a while I was kind of ignoring it.

Speaker 2:

And then one day I was on the phone with my publishing house and they had just sent me some spreads of some new pages of a book that I was writing at that time. That had photographs and illustrations in it and I could see through the paper on the other side, the color coming through and it was interrupting the words on the other side, the color coming through and it was interrupting the words on the opposite side of the page. So I said you know, we need to get thicker paper, maybe toothier, maybe it needs to be like this. And as I'm describing the paper, I realized to myself and it all happened like this but because I think of core values, I think like that. Now I thought, oh, I value the core value of discerning. So I thought that and then I thought I do, I really like that core value, being a discerning person. And then I thought, huh, I'm not discerning about the food I eat. I am not discerning, I'm just popping in the cheddar cheese, goldfin. I am not discerning, I'm just popping in the cheddar cheese, goldfish, pizza, the mac and cheese, you know. And I thought discerning is important to me and this is an example of how to use what I call identity-based statements.

Speaker 2:

There's a whole area of psychology and behavioral change with this. That has research on this. But I'll give you the example first that has research on this. But I'll give you the example first. I wrote down I am a discerning person and so I eat healthy foods. I connected the habit of I eat healthy foods with a core value that meant something to me and then I want to identify with that. It's a value that I already know, I really love and that I am capable of because I'm capable of it in other areas. So I would look and I'd see the cheddar cheese, goldfish and I would think I am a discerning person. A discerning person wouldn't eat that. I'm a discerning person, I make healthy food choices. This one core value statement, identity-based habit statement helped me to stop eating all of that crappy food and I lost 20 pounds in three months, mainly based on using identity-based statements.

Speaker 2:

And then something happens Once you become really aware that you value a core value like that, it has a ripple effect where you subconsciously then start to be more discerning about how you spend money I'm a discerning person or who you spend time with, how you use your time in general, and it starts to filter out into other areas of your life. Because the truth is, we are using our identity to choose our habits now on a subconscious basis. If right now you're sloppy, it's probably because in your mind you're thinking I'm a sloppy person, so you do the habits of a sloppy person. If you're organized, you're walking around thinking I'm an organized person, so you're doing the habits of an organized person.

Speaker 2:

Your identity is the puppet master for your habits, so your identity is your destiny. So if you want to change your destiny, you want to change your habits. You have to think about your identity first. And Frank Sinatra you have to think about your identity first. And Frank Sinatra? He sang Doobie Doobie Doo and it's a great song, but that don't want to over talk it. But when you think of your identity, first let that be the puppet master and then attach the habit it creates like a cognitive dissonance if you don't do.

Speaker 1:

I'm a loving person.

Speaker 2:

So I call my mom three times a week, you know. And then if you don't, because my mom is 93, you know, I want to make sure I am checking in with her, you know. And then of course I am like, as soon as you attach that or you want to do something, but you're a little scared. I'm a brave person. And if you feel resistance with the core value because you haven't quite owned it yet, what you do is you find evidence that you've been that way at some point. And that's sort of what I do with the discerning. I find evidence. Oh, with the books I'm discerning. So if you don't feel brave, remind yourself. Everybody has some time some times that they were brave. Collect those. And it's sort of like Simba in the Lion King where they say you must remember who you really are.

Speaker 1:

I haven't watched the Lion King. I'm so bad with movies. Yeah, they would have watched it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and you have to remember that is. That is, you have it in you to be brave, you have it in you to be your authentic self, you have it in you to be discerning and just you know. Or if you're really feeling resistance with the core value, I tell my clients to say the old me used to not be brave, the new me is brave, and then you can sort of get excited about the new me that's going to be brave or whatever the core value is.

Speaker 1:

It sounds so simple and I know that it is, and I'm a big fan of creating habits and curious about behavior. Why am I doing these things and how does this work and creating daily change? You know, through small details can, you know, compound to make big results, but it's still a process, right. You still need to consciously go through this for it to work. Do you come across people who just have a like, just put up a bit of a boundary or a wall with making this simple practice work? I don't know if that's the right question.

Speaker 2:

Yes, well, I understand what you're saying and that's why I do think death is the ultimate life coach. Because when you add on what you want to be like at the end of your life and you realize this is your one and only life, unless you have other beliefs about multiple lifetimes, which I even bring up, that's fine. But if you want your next life to even be better, you're supposed to learn the lessons in this one. So you don't have to. You know, they say we repeat what we don't repair, and so if you even believe that there's more than one life and I'm fine with people having that I even have a whole chapter in the book about if you believe in a soul or a core self and what that means for you and death and all of that. I explore that in the book it doesn't even matter if you believe that you have an everlasting soul, because you still want to learn the lessons and improve now for the next life. So you're not dragging all of the same issues with you. And if you only believe that or whatever you believe, I don't want to say only because I am not, I'm agnostic about that, I am not, I'm agnostic about that. I'm, you know I'm really open to both, but if you believe that there's just this one life, then you do really want to make it count.

Speaker 2:

And either way, I believe and I write about this up front even before the chapter with the eulogy that the goal of life is to learn lessons that help you to grow into your best possible self. And when you're on that very last bed that you're gonna be lying on, you're gonna be so proud of yourself. I remember I was able to change that. I remember I handled that challenge well, and so that's where mortality awareness comes in to get you to feel like I want to make this a life that I am proud of, and that's where it starts to kick up your motivation a couple extra notches. When you really realize that our time here is fleeting. Make the most of it. Show up as your best self, as the best friend. You can be the best you know spouse, mother, father, whatever it is you know and that's a whole nother layer in the book.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I haven't got to that bit yet. I don't think. What about the types of people that go through this process with you? Like, we obviously want to reach more people by sharing your book, but, like, are there specific points in people's lives? You talked about your own experience with your dad. Is there something going on Like for me I'm midlife this is a real kind of. That's why I kind of said it's poignant for me, because it is a real turning point in your life. Do you have other people that come to you because something's happened?

Speaker 2:

Yes, so much. So I have a theory about this and I think I'm going to write an article about this. Even I think I have a theory and I haven't really said this out loud yet in full sentences, so I might stumble a little. But the famous midlife crisis I think it happens because people are first getting their first glimpses of mortality and they're aware that life is short and that's why they suddenly make they blow up their lives. Because there's probably, like I think my book appeals to people that are about 40 and up, because they've kind of they're aware that maybe some of the things they're doing don't really work, maybe they have the wrong focus or they're having what and this was the other reason why I wrote the book what I call near life experiences. In the front of the book I say that I didn't write this book because I had a near death experience. I had a near-death experience. I had a near-life experience, and what I mean by that is and I made up the term, but there should be a term for it, so I made it up, but it's out there anyway, even before I came up with the term for it.

Speaker 2:

It's when you're on your phone so much you're scrolling, you're swiping, you're distracted, and so you're not fully in your life. You're scrolling, you're swiping, you're distracted, and so you're not fully in your life. You're near your life, you're like life adjacent, or you're out to dinner with a loved one, but your mind is kind of elsewhere. You're worrying about something in the future, or you're kind of like ruminating on something from the past, or you're, like you know, thinking about somebody that you resent or something that's keeping you blocked from being fully present. That's also a near life experience.

Speaker 2:

And then the third kind of near life experience is when you keep saying someday I will, or later, I'll do that later, and we act as if we have like 700 extra years stored in a drawer somewhere, act as if we have like 700 extra years stored in a drawer somewhere, you know, but we don't. This is like our one life. It's fleeting, we don't know. We don't know how many some days we'll have and we don't know how many Sundays we'll have Like we don't know. So you have to live now. You have to stop having near life experiences, which is sort of like being on autopilot and I think we have those more, maybe when we're younger and also our priorities and our, maybe some of our core values are a little bit off because and in the book and I think you read this part I talk about Aristotle's point of view on what a meaningful life is, and I can repeat that a little bit. Yes, please.

Speaker 2:

Yeah repeat it. I feel like I'm talking a lot, but again, I'm here to talk, that's what it's all about. I'm like, oh, let me give you room to talk, but I'm also excited about this. So I'm here like I, I'm all excited about sharing this information. So Aristotle said that you don't know if you've lived a good life until you're on your deathbed. And he's also said that we should begin every project with the ends in mind, everything from something small, like a bake sale, to something big I don't know if he said bake sale, I'm kind of like you know, but I'm sure he would agree with me if he were here to something large, like that gigantic project called your life, and then reverse engineer it and figure out what you have to do to get to that end goal. And too many people don't know what that end goal is.

Speaker 2:

And Aristotle said that, even though people are all so different, we all have the same end goal for life. No matter where you're from Timbuktu, toronto, toledo we all have the same end goal, and that is to learn lessons that help us to grow into our best possible self. He called it the education of the soul. But again, if you're not into the language of the word soul, the education of our core self. And he said that too many people and this was even back in his day and it sure as heck applies now too many people have the wrong end goal for their life. They think it is become the richest person on the planet, become the sexiest person on this planet, to have the most status on the planet fame, beauty, all of that kind of stuff, which are more like ego-based or body pleasure-based, which are more like ego-based or body pleasure-based. And he said, if you put the focus on those things, when you get to the end of your life, you're gonna feel like you wasted it. You're gonna feel like you chased the wrong rabbits. That the goal is to live a soul-directed life, not an ego-directed life or a core self-directed life. And he basically said I'm riffing here that the soul is your G-spot for happiness, that whatever you do to help your soul, that you're authentic, that you're living a life that's based on what your soul or your core self really wants.

Speaker 2:

Again, it goes into the research on people's regrets at the end of their life. I wish I had lived a life that was true to me. I wish I had expressed myself more. These are the regrets, the top regrets, of the dying, and I wish that I'd allowed myself to have more fun and more adventure. I wish that I had. You know anyway this I love when what Aristotle says matches what you know what palliative care end of life doulas have found, and it does. And so we have to make sure that we are aimed at learning lessons that help us to grow into our best possible self, and when you have that sort of as your focus that also motivates you to embrace strong character values, because that's going to help you to make sure that when you get to you know whatever is the end of your life, you will feel like you want to give your life a 10-star Yelp review that you did great, you will feel like you want to give your life a 10-star Yelp review that you did great.

Speaker 2:

So that's how my belief system is, and I think people start to wake up to that more, starting at age 40. And I also think it's not coincidence that that's probably when some of you experience some deaths around you, because I was in my 40s when my dad passed and it woke me up and I think that that's part of the midlife crisis. It's just a theory that's percolating that midlife crisis is really a mortality awareness crisis, and I'm just spitballing here as I'm doing these interviews, it's starting to become more clear to me, because that is kind of the people that are coming to me for the coaching in that kind of midlife crisis.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I agree that that, even if it's not a conscious oh my God, I'm halfway. Yeah, what the hell am I doing there's definitely a subconscious shift where we're like I don't feel the same. What's my purpose? I need more meaning in my life. Who am I? What was that first half all about? What do I want the second half to be?

Speaker 1:

There's all of these things that start to come about, and some people have health issues that start to arise at that age. We have menopause yes, yeah, that can wake you up. Losing someone. Dissatisfaction with career, like. There are all these things that start to happen in the middle of our lives that really do. And it's a process. You get there and you're kind of like, okay, what's it all about? But that's why, like I said, it's so poignant for me because I'm in it. I'm 51. So I feel like I've been going through this process for quite some time and it can feel a bit gloomy at times because you can be a bit like I'm not doing all of the things that I should be doing, you know and that. But your, your books really inspired me to kind of, yeah, take a completely different perspective and just go. Well, if I don't do it now, then it's not going to be a life well lived do it now, then it's not going to be a life well lived.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I have a whole chapter towards the back called it's never too late to rejigger your life, and I really believe that there there's no uh stop date on new beginnings. You know, and there's a quote in there by Arthur Arthur Schopenhauer um, that life may be compared to a piece of embroidery, that the first half you see the pretty side, you know where, and then the second half, you see the part where it has all the threads and it's not as pretty, but it shows the pattern of why things happened as they did. And then it helps you. I forgot how, how we wrote it, but I liked that idea and that's sort of what happens in midlife. You see the part where it's all like kind of messy, and then you decide what the piece of embroidery is going to look like in its totality you know, yeah so with your own eulogy, um, do you?

Speaker 1:

you share that in the book and you talk about the book in your eulogy, and so I'm curious, like that's obviously at the moment and has been for some time, although not in book form. Although not in book form, the book is do you feel like, oh God, nadine, let's go back a step? Do you feel like your eulogy might change? I guess is my full point.

Speaker 2:

And can we change it as we evolve. I encourage that. I encourage people throughout the book to go back and keep revising, because you know why, if you're doing your life right and if you're doing the book right, I'm constantly asking people to understand who they are more, and sometimes you just have to. As you're growing, you're changing, you know, and it's going to change what matters to you and I want you to keep updating. We are all works in progress and so our eulogies have to be works in progress, so I'm always updating it. But I did include writing this book as part of my eulogy, because it's kind of what I call my legacy project, where I want this to be a message that I, you know, kind of pass on the ripples I want to create, as I call that, and I feel like we all need to understand what we want our legacies to be, and it doesn't have to be a book and it doesn't even have to be something large. You know, it could just even be core values that those are I call those ripples that you know being known for being kind, being known for being supportive, a good mentor, all of those things. And in my book I have a chapter about a true story that happened when my dad died, which was a little woo-woo, but again, I'm not that woo-woo, I'm more like one woo, but this was a little woo-woo. I'm not that woo-woo, I'm more like one woo, but this was a little woo-woo.

Speaker 2:

On the day that my dad died, I got to the hospital first and then my mother showed up and she said Karen, I found this envelope in dad's bedroom bureau drawer and it's something that you mailed to him. It's postmarked, something that you mailed to him when you were in college. You mailed to him, it's postmarked something that you mailed to him when you were in college. So I became very curious what is this? So I opened it up and I'd written him a little note and I had torn some pages from him a book whose name I don't know, and it wasn't oddly enough, it was not even down at the bottom of the pages. So I still don't even know the name of the book, but when I read it, it was so oddly synchronicitous to read this on the day that he died that I wound up reading it at the funeral, and it not only helps somebody to grieve the loss of someone that you love, but it also is a mortality awareness reminder.

Speaker 2:

So in the book I kind of loosely paraphrase what I read, because over the years I unfortunately I haven't been able to find the piece of paper, but I have it so in my mind because I used to read it so much after he passed and it said something like this Everything that is not given is lost. Given is lost. Then it went on and said read those words again, really take them in. Everything that is not given is lost. This is a potent wake-up call Every thought, every feeling, every passion, every talent, every skill lost unless you share it with others. And then, when you share it with them, they will pass it on to someone who will pass it on to someone who pass it on to them. And so the metaphor of a pebble being tossed in a pond is I forgot how the book wrote it something like is relevant here, because that's what happens when you share of yourself it passes on like ripples in a pond. And keeping this metaphor in mind, oh, and then it said so if you hoard yourself and you don't give of yourself, you will leave a very small ripple, but if you give yourself very fully, then the ripple will become bigger. And with this in mind, what kind of ripple do you want to leave behind? And when I read that I was like, wow, I can't believe it, because he passed away later that day and I was thinking about my dad's ripples to me and they actually had to do with core values. He was so kind, my dad was like that's what everybody has always said about him and came up at his at the funeral. And also there was also something else that was a little bit I was unaware of until like a month or so later.

Speaker 2:

My dad was a financial advisor, which felt like a very different career than me. He was like all numbers and everything, but as a financial advisor he was a contrarian. If the market crashed, he'd be like, oh great, everything's on sale. Or if everybody was zigging, it's zag. And it hit me oh my gosh, even though I'm a writer, which is nothing like a financial advisor. I'm a contrarian. He passed on the ripple of being contrarian because I like to write books that are a little bit of, you know, off the beaten track of everybody's zigging. I don't want to zig, I want to zag and I am a zagger and I think I got that from my dad and that's his ripple that he passed on to me, and then I owned that and I thought I want to pass that on to my son. You know, and these are the mini legacies, the ripples that we leave behind.

Speaker 1:

It's really interesting, isn't it? I love that and I really hope that the listeners grasp this and run with it too. But how we get caught up with purpose and you talked about this right at the beginning of our conversation with productivity, like working and achieving as the sort of benchmarks of a good life, or you know, and it's kind of right from the outset, that's the path that we're kind of guided towards. But when you actually do sit down and so you know we might have I'm not good enough, I haven't succeeded, I don't make enough money, all of these things that we might be kind of ruminating on and thinking that we need to work towards and hustle for. But then when we sit down and go, what are my core values? What is actually important to me when I do get to the end of my life? They can be quite different. It can be as simple as being a good mom. Being a good mom has got nothing to do with like how much money you make.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely not. Yes, I mean, that's the relief of this. We are a lot of us are chasing the wrong rabbits. A eulogy is not somebody reading your LinkedIn profile out loud. Nobody is going to read your Google calendar as your eulogy oh, she was very good, she never missed a dentist appointment. None of that matters, and so that's why the to-die list is more important than the to-do list.

Speaker 2:

Well, you need a to-do list to have function, but you have to make sure that you're doing the types of things that create ripples, and those are. You don't have to do with meaningful relationships, meaningful experiences and being of service and having some sort of purpose, and I share a lot about that. Towards the end of the book that the purpose of your life is to find and do the purpose of your life, and a lot of your purpose might be turning your pain into purpose, like something that you went through could be something that you can be of service and help others with, or it could just be something that you're very passionate about. So I help people to figure out what their legacy would be now, and I like coaching people with that. I have a legacy lab where I help people to figure out what their legacy is and it doesn't have to be large, it could be these small things. You know, being aware and mindful of embracing your core values is the legacy you can leave behind.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we're coming close to the end of our hour and I'm sure that we could talk about this for a lot longer, but I'm really keen if you wouldn't mind. Sharing you've shared. One of your core values is discernment. Is that one of the core values that you recommend as the seven? Could you?

Speaker 2:

Oh, I could tell you all seven. Yeah, that would be great. I actually put them in alphabetical order. I realized that they worked, but one of them didn't, so I kind of tweaked it to work and I even think it got better with the tweak to make it alphabetical. So all of these are related to the top regrets of the dying. That's how I came up with them, so they're not random.

Speaker 2:

The first one is A is for authentic, and that again showed up as one of the regrets of the dying. I wish that I had been more true to myself. I wish I had expressed myself more. So you need to be authentic. B is brave, because that's how you get out of your comfort zone, that's how you make change. C is curious, and that's there because we repeat what we don't repair. So we have to become curious about why do I have this pattern, why, you know, instead of just going. This always happens to me or I can never get a break. Get curious about that so you can break through your limiting beliefs. And also, curiosity helps you to have more awe in your life, more magic like oh, I wonder if there is a soul. Is there? Get curious. Some of the most magical moments in life is because you have a little awe over things. D is discerning, because that is one of my favorites, but it also helps because everybody says I'm too busy to do this. That's such what I call a blame excuse why you're not spending time with the people that you love and you know what. If you're discerning, then you can look for where your time wasters are and make sure that you're not wasting your life on crap and clutter.

Speaker 2:

E is, and this is the one I had to tweak. I wanted love in there because that's my actually one of my. I even think I put that above discerning. Loving is my top core value actually, and it didn't fit, so I called it empathic love. So I can make it alphabetical, and I even think that's even better, because if I just put love people might've thought, oh, is that chemistry, love like lust, or is it only romantic love? And I want empathic love to kind of encompass all kinds of love with a stranger in a store that you're nice to, or love with, you know, your colleagues or neighbors, or your dog, like kids, anything it's. You know, this whole umbrella of empathic love and a reminder that it's about, you know, active listening, being present, compassionate love.

Speaker 2:

And then F is fun, and I know that might not sound like a core value but it really, really is. Because, again, a lot of the top regrets of the dying are I wish I hadn't worked so hard, I wish I allowed myself to be happier. You know, I wish I'd spent more time with my friends. So if you own the core value of fun and then even brainstorm fun things to do, so that would go on your to-die list, fun things can go on your to-die list so it doesn't get kind of swept under the rug with that productivity that you're like oh I'm getting so much done, but are you having any fun, you know. And then he is gratitude, and that's a great mindset to have.

Speaker 2:

When you're busy changing your life. You know to have gratitude for what you have now, for gratitude for your friends, so you want to like make sure you spend time with them and gratitude for the effort of yourself putting in the effort of change. So those are the top seven that I recommend people embrace. And then look further like little accompanying habits that you could do. I am fun and so I. You know, I am curious and so I. I am loving and so I and then figure out the habits that you need to do with those and slap those on your to die list and do them. I love that.

Speaker 1:

I love it. It's yeah, it's been a real inspiration for me to to get my hands on your book and to start going through this process, so I'm really grateful to have to hear you talk about it. Um, and yeah, inspire more people with this practice. It can be so easy to get caught up in the everyday, can't it? Like yeah, and so I love this notion and I can't encourage everyone, everyone enough to go through this process and take the time to do it and not make the someday.

Speaker 2:

Don't make the book a someday thing, but actually get your hands on it and start going through this process of the things I want to leave you and your listeners with is that sometimes, when people hear that I wrote a book on death, they think I'm an end of life doula. But I'm a middle of life doula and I think there should. I made that up again. I like words and phrases, but when I came up with that I thought to myself gosh, why isn't there something called a middle of life doula? Gosh, why isn't there something called a middle of life doula?

Speaker 2:

Why do we wait to the end of our lives to get closure on things make peace with, like we should do the end of life practices in the middle of life, while we still have runway left to make the changes we need to make. And so, in fact, some of the, the uh, the ideas in the book I um explain some of them come from end of life doulas, but I have people do them now things like chronological mapping and life review and life audits and things like that. To you know, figure out why you have the patterns that you like and make the changes. So now is the time to do it while we still have runway.

Speaker 1:

So now, is the time to do it while we still have runway, and I think one of the things that really stood out for me is that when you do write your eulogy, you don't have to be doing all of those things right now, but it kind of gives you a picture of what you want to do so that you can actually start doing it. Yeah, it's been really, really insightful so far. I'm looking forward to reading the rest and putting more of it into practice. Before you go, can I ask you a small favor? If you've enjoyed this show or any of the other episodes that you've listened to, then I'd really appreciate it if you took a couple of moments to hit subscribe. This is a great way to increase our listeners and get the word out there about all of the wonderful guests that we've had on the podcast. If you'd like to further support the show, you can buy me a coffee by going to buymeacoffeecom forward slash, life, health, the universe. You can find that link in the show notes. Thanks for listening.