What If Mortality Is The Map To Meaning?

What if grief could be a compass that points you back to a life you actually want to live? Mark opens up about losing his father, a dear friend nearing the end of life, and the moments that cracked him open to Dharma teachings that changed the tone of his mind. This is not a tidy set of hacks. It’s a raw, steadying invitation to face impermanence, name the inner critic, and choose action over perfection while there’s still time on the clock.

We move from Stoic reminders—memento mori and the urgency of a single day—to practical, humane tools that make a difference when the mind turns against itself. You’ll learn how to spot the critic’s script and defuse it with humor, how to make the activity the reward so outcomes stop owning you, and how simple practices like meditation, journaling, and honest conversation create room to breathe. Along the way, we explore why love and service sit beneath so much of our striving, and how asking for help is adult courage, not a confession of failure.

Anchored by Oliver Sacks’s luminous words on gratitude and uniqueness, the conversation returns, again and again, to a fierce kind of encouragement: stop waiting. Write the page. Call the friend. Sit with your feelings without making them enemies. Open like a flower rather than bracing against the wind. Doubt won’t vanish, but authenticity grows when you act with a softer inner voice and a clearer sense of time’s value. If this resonates, subscribe, share with someone who needs it, and leave a review so others can find the show. Then tell us: what will you start before sunset?

If you’re tired of doing this work alone, I offer a free conversation to help you get clear on your next steps. Apply Here when you’re ready.

Transcript

Grief, Mortality, And Stoic Wisdom

A Friend, A Teacher, A Turning Point

Naming And Defusing The Inner Critic

Love, Help, And Everyday Practices

Choose Action Over Perfection

Oliver Sacks On Gratitude And Leaving

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hey everybody, this is Mark, and this is the podcast called Fierce Encouragement. If you're new here, if you're a first-time listener, I created this podcast to kind of address that sour inner voice, that inner critic that seems to dominate our energy, our thoughts, our work projects, even the relationships we have with ourselves. So I made this for people that want to break out of that a little bit, learn some tools and some methods, and maybe just listen to some stories that'll help them pick themselves up, have a better day, have a better week. I'm a little down today. And um it's interesting because this month I lost my father to his battle with cancer about three years ago, and he was ill for the three years or so before that. And as you get into middle age and past middle age, you see it. Friends, their parents are leaving, uh, accidents, um, people younger than me getting sick and passing away. And I guess I wanted to use this podcast today to talk about loss, death, impermanence. And I want to frame it up in a fierce, encouraging way to encourage ourselves to live a good life. As Marcus Surelius and the Stoics often reminded us in that ancient wisdom, we can leave life right now. And so they prompt us or they encourage us to live well today, live well in this moment, and embrace the challenges, but also the beauty of your life. So while it's hard to say goodbye to my friend, while it's hard to look at this conveyor belt of life and realize that we are all of us are impermanent. Nothing here is meant to last and endure forever. And in fact, that probably brings a little sweetness and beauty to our journey here. It is hard to say goodbye, it is hard to deal with illness and loss and a mind that might be overwhelmed. But it's also important to appreciate and have some encouraging attitudes that come from within. And maybe to not joke or dupe ourselves into thinking that we are permanent or going to last forever. Maybe in that way, fierce encouragement is looking at ourselves and saying, damn it, stop waiting. Stop pretending like you have all the time in the world, stop beating yourself up. Go write the book, create the podcast, spend time with the kids, reach out and have a connection with somebody new. And in a sense, live well and celebrate your life in the moment. Gosh, ever since I pressed record on this, uh, I feel like I'm gonna start crying. So thank you for taking this time to listen. My friend um, who's going through this last stage of life, was the one that introduced me to my Dharma teacher and really helped me save my life. About 10 or 15 years ago, and it's funny because today I was going through some old books that I want to get rid of, and I found some notes in there that I wrote to myself, and they were painful to hear. And it was in a book called Encouraging Parent, oddly enough. I wrote something along the lines: why don't they talk about the pain? Why don't they talk about the difficulty? Why is this so hard? I'm really grateful to my friend for taking me one weekend to uh a couple days of teaching from my Dharma teacher. It really shifted my life. There was a lot to go through between then and now, but I know in my heart and in my mind that getting that fierce encouragement from the Dharma, from the tools and the practices from my teacher and the lineage, it's shifted my life and it's changed the quality and the timber or the energy in my mind. So I will be eternally grateful to him for introducing me to my teacher. And maybe I could rotate that back onto you and ask you that question. Where are you looking for help or encouragement? What might you be avoiding that you know you would like to do that you dream of doing? And how can you just let go of the outcome and the reward that you maybe think is at the end of it and make the activity the reward, make being apparent the reward, make the doing and the being present with yourself the reward. It's so easy to be critical with ourselves. It's so easy to beat ourselves up and focus on the pain and take ourselves down. In fact, I heard another great coach share this with me this week. If we had a boss or a manager following us around through our whole day and our whole week and criticizing everything we did, whether it was cooking the food or doing the laundry or being a creator, we eventually would probably lose our patience with them and tell them to buzz off and not so many words. But we have a whole stadium full of voices and energy and maybe even teachers or figureheads from our youth that stay in our mind and criticize us. They criticize us every moment when we're trying to create, or maybe just being vulnerable. Like, don't show emotion, don't, don't open up, don't have have a good heart. It's so easy to think that we need to fix the world when, in fact, one of the best gifts we can give ourselves is to name those voices, those figures, those characters that come up in our head. And maybe in a playful sense, tell them to buzz off. Or rather, maybe mock them with a different voice. So many of the clients that I've had the uh privilege and the joy of connecting with, or the even the conversations I've had with other coaches and business leaders and executives and parents. Again and again, I hear how hard it is in the world, but how hard it is inside their head. After we get through most of the bull crap, um, the productivity hacks and all that stuff, when we get right down to it, we want to be loved. We want to be connected and help others. And we want to feel a little more at home in our heads and in our hearts. And even thinking about impermanence and loss, it isn't easy. No matter if our parents or friends are very old or young, and thinking of parents who lost their kids at a very young age, it's heavy and it's hard. But one of the best gifts we can give ourselves is to reach out for help, to reach out for a conversation, and maybe even say to somebody else, like, I don't know how to handle this. I'm uh really good, or I have been good. I'm getting much better in the last decade or two of reaching out and asking for help, of using my practice to look for things that will help me get through the difficulties of life. So I want to encourage you, continue to ask for help, continue to listen to this podcast, listen to books and tools, practice some meditation, practice some journaling. It's so important. You are valuable, you are needed, and you're here, you're a child of God, you're the material that stars had at their core. We are alive in this world, and it's such a blessing. And while it might seem like a curse, and sometimes it is heavy and overwhelming, just know that there's love for you inside and from without. And don't let the negative inner voices and characters pull you down. I know how that can feel. Uh and I know it's valuable and it's worthwhile to continue to work on yourself and do the work. I think we can practice dying to that part of us that criticizes ourselves, that is sour, that seems to be ever-present. And while that part of us never goes 100% away, much like our relatives or loved ones that have passed, they're with us, the memories and the time and the joyful moments we had and the troublesome moments, they all were there to help us learn and grow and evolve and change. And we can bring that to the next generation, our friends, and we can share. And honestly, that's why I created this. It's not because I have some ultimate truth to share, other than I do care about people. And I care about them because I know the struggle that I went through. And I also feel the difficulty in letting go and the beauty in the dance that we're in. So you are worthwhile. I appreciate you being here. And again, I prompt you and ask you: how could you show up for yourself today? How could you notice with some awareness the tone and energy and the feeling tone in your mind, and invite yourself to lay off, maybe even mock those voices, and then come back and realize your time is short. No matter if you're young or old, death is certain. The time of death is uncertain. So make use of your time today and know that I'm out here encouraging you and creating from a place of wobbliness and fear as well. None of us are doubt free. And in fact, I would maybe make the argument those that are completely doubt-free aren't probably living with a deeper authenticity, one that comes from healing and growth and opening up instead of closing down. The beauty of a flower is when it expands and opens up instead of staying closed and constricted. So I beg you to open up and share your gifts, share your words, and please letting go of that need to be perfect on anything. I certainly don't feel perfect right now. And I hope that you will use this as a prompt to continue to evolve and change and know that we're all out here waiting for you and your magic to come into all of our lives. Thank you for listening. I did want to share one quote from a book I wrote a few wrote I read a few years ago by Oliver Sachs. He's a great author. Um, and if you haven't read this, it's a wonderful book called Gratitude by Oliver Sachs. And he wrote it in the last year of his life when he was going through some health challenges and going through his own leaving the stage moment. But this is from Oliver Sachs, and the book again is gratitude. I have been increasingly conscious for the last 10 years or so of deaths among my contemporaries. My generation is on the way out, and each death I have felt as an abrupt an abrupt an abruption, a tearing away of part of myself. There will be no one like us when we are gone. But there is no one like us, anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate, the genetic and neural fate of every human being to be a unique individual, to find their own path, to live their own life, and to die their own death. I cannot pretend I am without fear, but my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved. I have been given much and I have given something in return. I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure. It is a privilege to be here with you. Thank you.