Personal Development Mastery: Actionable Insights for Self Improvement
Hosted by Dr Agi Keramidas, Personal Development Mastery delivers actionable insights in self improvement, personal growth, and success habits for busy professionals seeking a purposeful, fulfilling life.
If you're committed to personal development and a growth mindset, this podcast is your trusted companion. Whether you're feeling stuck, striving for more, or ready to take aligned action, each episode helps you gain clarity, confidence, motivation, and transformation.
Through inspiring conversations with leading entrepreneurs, bestselling authors and self help experts, Agi shares practical strategies to fuel your self improvement, nurture mental health, and accelerate personal growth.
Each episode delivers practical wisdom to develop emotional intelligence, boost your confidence and master your mindset: essential tools for productivity and personal growth, even in the busiest of lives.
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Personal Development Mastery: Actionable Insights for Self Improvement
#515 "If you die before you die, you won't die when you die" (Personal development wisdom snippets)
What does it really mean to "die before you die", and how can this insight radically transform the way you live?
Snippet of wisdom 079.
In this series, I select my favourite, most insightful moments from previous episodes of the podcast.
Today, my guest Martin O'Toole talks about unplugging from the illusion of modern life, the deep regrets people face at the end of their journey, and how embracing presence, gratitude, and awareness can lead to a more meaningful existence.
Press play to learn how to escape the hamster wheel, live with fewer regrets, and choose a life of conscious fulfillment.
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VALUABLE RESOURCES:
Listen to the full conversation with Martin O'Toole in episodes #316-317:
https://personaldevelopmentmasterypodcast.com/316
https://personaldevelopmentmasterypodcast.com/317
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Actionable insights on personal development, self improvement, self mastery and personal growth for a life of purpose and fulfilment.
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Personal development, self-mastery and actionable wisdom for self improvement, self help and living with purpose and fulfilment.
Inspirational and actionable insights to help you cultivate emotional intelligence, build confidence, live authentically and embrace your purpose. Discover practical tools and motivation for personal growth, self mastery, mindset shifts, healthy habits, meditation, wellness, spirituality, personal mastery and self growth. Empowering entrepreneurs, leaders and seekers to get unstuck, nurture mental health, commit to self-improvement, and create meaningful success and lasting happiness.
Join our growing community at MasterySeekersTribe.com, where self-mastery seekers come together for connection and growth.
Agi Keramidas
Welcome to Personal Development Mastery Podcast and this is another snippet of wisdom where I select my favorite most insightful moments from previous episodes. Today's snippet comes from my guest Martin O'Toole who talks about the deep regrets people face at the end of their life, the end of their journey and how to embrace presence, awareness and unplugging from the illusion of modern life. Let's dive right in.You have a quote in your book by Eckhart Tolle which reminded me of something I had read many years ago when I went to Mount Athos, the holy mountain in Greece and there was a big sign on the wall and it said, if you die before you die then you won't die when you die and you know I was so impressed I was mesmerized by that quote I took a photograph of it and I was trying to contemplate and I mean I was in my late 20s at the time, what does that phrase die before you die so that you won't die when you die?
Martin O'Toole
Yeah that's a great question and it's obviously a great prose. I use, as you've identified, I use something similar by Eckhart Tolle in the book and indeed I talk at length about what I refer to as the gift of life within a life and this plays to your question. Ultimately we can, if we are not careful, spend our entire life not living or perhaps it might be more appropriate to say not being.We are born into a system of materialism, of consumerism, of control where various authorities and organizations and corporations are very keen for us to do certain things essentially so that they have control, so that they make more money out of us, whatever those drivers are. We live often in the illusion of freedom where actually if you have a kind of a series of events like happened to me then suddenly you're able to step back from it all and start to see the illusion of life. I'm not saying we all live like this of course, I'm just saying it's a possibility for so many of us.Ultimately it's what I call life on the hamster wheel, it's what the movie The Matrix really talks about. There's a chapter in the book called Was the Matrix a Documentary? Essentially making these observations that if we're not careful very early on we're encouraged to get ourselves in significant financial debt and go to school, learn a lot of things we're going to use but we do also learn how to do as we're told, get onto the hamster wheel into some sort of a career that for many of us sadly is immensely unfulfilling.We give ourselves two, maybe three weeks holiday a year which is absolutely insane if you think about how hard we work and then we wait until we're 65 until we can actually start living. So this really gets to the whole premise and that is not a life. Now I'm sure some people would say well it is, okay yes it's a degree of living of course it is but it's not what it could be, it's not all that it can be.I know that from personal experience and just from the simple fact that since I unplugged myself from the matrix and I left London and moved to Bali, I'm actually surrounded by like-minded individuals who have decided no that's not the life I want actually. So and there are obviously lots of different ways to do it. So it's the idea that if you can actually see past the illusion of what life is positioned as and genuinely then learn these incredible skills of acceptance, awareness, presence, gratitude, the alchemy of mindfulness if you like, then you're living in a different way and when it comes to actually dying and this is obviously part and parcel of the book's concept, the idea is if you have lived in such a way then you are most certain to die with few to no regrets and that's the precede to the book really is talking about research albeit some anecdotal and some scientific that talks about deathbed regrets and when you look at these regrets it's actually quite heartbreaking. It's people saying I wish I'd taken better care of my body.I wish I'd said I love you more. I wish I'd spent less time at work and more time with family. I wish I'd had the courage to express my true self.I wish I'd known that happiness was a choice much sooner. That one breaks my heart every time I say it. So these are the things that people are saying when it's too late for them to have that life that they could have had.So the whole premise of the book is to essentially say we in the west have a bit of a bizarre relationship with death, with permanence. We put it off. We deny it and in doing so we are also denying the magic of true living or living well as I like to say.
Agi Keramidas
Thank you for listening. You will find the full conversation with Martin O'Toole in episodes 316, 317. The link is in the show notes.If you have been resonating with the conversations in the podcast and feel like you are at a crossroads in your life, I offer one-to-one coaching to help you gain clarity and step into your next chapter with confidence. If that sounds interesting, reach out to me using the link in the show notes and let's have a conversation. Until next time, stand out, don't fit in.
