Courageous Retirement: Answer God's Call to MORE!

21. Live Full Out: Overcoming Regrets with LeeAnn Marie Webster

• Vona Johnson • Season 1 • Episode 21

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Are there things you wish you could undo or do-over? We all have them, but you can live regret-free!

Join us for an insightful and moving conversation with Leanne Marie Webster about living life 'full out,' free from regrets. 

In this episode, Leanne revisits a tragic childhood event that shaped her philosophy of living every day to the fullest. We discuss the importance of intentional living, how regrets can reveal what we truly value, and the significance of small, meaningful actions in our everyday lives. 

Leanne doesn't just share her story; she offers practical advice on how to apply these principles in your own life. Whether writing a book, reconnecting with a lost passion, or cultivating deeper relationships, Leanne's guidance will empower you to harness past experiences to fuel a purposeful and joyful future. 

Don't miss out on these valuable lessons to help you live a life of no regrets and embrace your true calling.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:47 The Origin Story: A Life-Changing Event
03:48 Understanding Regrets and Their Value
07:00 Living Intentionally and Overcoming Regrets
09:11 Personal Stories of Transformation
11:05 The Power of Support and Planning
14:45 Embracing Small Actions and Micro Changes
20:08 Final Thoughts and Encouragement
22:55 Conclusion and Upcoming Episodes

Find LeeAnn here: https://leeannmariewebster.com

Quotes from the show: 
"You can use your past, any regret or accomplishment or whatever, to fuel your future." LeeAnn Marie Webster

"Make sure that in this next phase, you're doing what really matters to you and not just what you should or somebody else thinks you should be doing." LeeAnn Marie Webster

"I love exactly where I am, and if I hadn't done some of the things that the world would view as wrong or inappropriate or whatever, my responses would be different, and I would be different." Vona Johnson

I'd love to hear from you! Send me a text message!

Thank you for stopping by today! Remember to Engage Your Faith and Live Your More as you reap the benefits of Courageous Retirement!

To watch the video, check out my YouTube Channel!

Learn more about the show, author Vona Johnson, and more at CourageousRetirement.com!

Schedule a free 15 minute Your Path to More call with Vona.

Speaker:

We all want to live our lives with no regrets. We'd like to think that we just play full out on everything. But there are times when we stop and we go, Hmm, could have done that different. Today, I am really excited to have with me a guest, Leanne Marie Webster,. And we're going to talk about playing full out with life to live with no regrets, no limits, and just go full into life. So I hope you'll join us for this wonderful conversation.

Speaker 3:

Do you fear what lies beyond retirement? What if it's a gateway to a life filled with purpose, meaning, and adventure rather than an end? Discover peace and fulfillment as you boldly enter this new chapter in Courageous Retirement, a Christian podcast. I'm your host, author and coach, Vona Johnson. Let's get started.

Speaker:

Thank you for joining me today. And I just want to jump right in. This is such an important topic because it's so easy to think of the woulda, coulda, shoulda. So tell us just in a nutshell, why no regrets? What, what brought you there?

LeeAnn Marie Webster:

Well, first of all, thank you for having me here. I'm really excited for this conversation. The you know, I always share my kind of an origin story. I don't know what you want to call it. The, the, the reason, the big why, the big why. And that is because when I was four years old and my brother was 12 years old, one of my brothers, he was killed in a car accident. And, you know, it's the early seventies. He was 12 at the time I was four and it was just one of those kind of freak accidents. And I always think that nobody knew, you know, that, that spring, it was a Saturday morning in the spring and nobody knew that was his last day in this realm that kid, they were out playing and riding bikes and doing their normal thing. And then this, this accident happened. And so I believe that that means that those of us who are still here, who have been given, you know, we're breathing, we're up, we're moving, that we have an opportunity, and I would even possibly say a responsibility to just do what we can to live our lives to the fullest every day.

Speaker:

Yeah. Well, first of all, I just want to say, I'm really sorry for your loss. I'm guessing something like that obviously is always with you or you wouldn't be still talking about it today.

LeeAnn Marie Webster:

And you know, it's interesting. It took me, I've done a lot of healing around it and I don't think I realized the depth of how it affected me until probably you know, five or six years ago. And because it's one of those things, my family never talked about it. I was four years old. And yet I remember it very clearly. I remember situations around it very clearly. And what I've come to realize is that there's kind of an imprint that happened when that happened, which was, you know, I'm, I'm going to be on my own, you know, cause everyone kind of turned inward to deal with their own wounds, which makes sense, you know, therapy, wasn't an option, early seventies, a poor family in Southern Ohio, like, you know, It's the time when it's like, walk it off, like, you know, so, and so I didn't really fully realize, and I'm still probably unpeeling layers of how that impacted me. So,

Speaker:

yeah, well, it's interesting because part of my story too, is I lost a cousin to a tragic car accident years ago, and it was that going through the grieving process and that realization that we don't know. When our time is up, which is why we live full out. And so that's, I love having you here today. My, my tagline is live your more, and the tagline for courageous retirement is answer God's call to more. And I feel that there's, there's that. That thing inside of us that draws us closer to our life's purpose. So tell us, tell us what no regrets your, your, your work looks like.

LeeAnn Marie Webster:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm, I'm fascinated by the topic of regret because I find that no matter how you grew up, where you grew up, your politics, religion, socioeconomic background, like all of that, we all have them in some form. And before somebody says, I don't have any regrets that somebody always says that, you know, if, if regret feels heavy, you can think of this in terms of what you said a few minutes ago, what would I do differently? You know, and my whole thing is that regrets actually aren't bad. They're indicative of what we value. You know, you wouldn't regret not having a conversation if you didn't value a relationship. You wouldn't regret. Eating too much sugar or candy or cake, if you didn't value health, so they can be really interesting indicators of what's important to us and valuable to us. Yet the challenge comes when they kind of weigh on us, and if we're not conscious of having them, then it can become something that hampers our ability to move forward or prevents us from taking action or or, or causes stress or anxiety or shame. And that's really where I see the, the real work is in how do you identify it and then release it. And that's one, one thing I've been doing in my work is helping people with releasing them.

Speaker:

Oh, I love that. And you know, I am one of those people, I say, I have no regrets. Not that. Well, no, I was going to say not that I wouldn't do things over again differently, but I don't know that I would because I love exactly where I am and, if I hadn't done some of the things that the world would view as wrong or inappropriate or whatever, my responses would be different and I would be different.

LeeAnn Marie Webster:

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, we all, and I feel you because. Before I started doing this work. I always said I had no regrets. I was like, everything happens for a reason, you know and, and, you know, connected to the higher power, you know, and I've, I've had some come up as I've done this work myself, like, One I have is that I wish I would have gotten to know my grandmother more as a woman, as a person, rather than just as a grandmother, because, you know, she would tell us those stories, you know, how to the grandma's house, every time you go over and talk about this and that and the other, and I wish I would have recorded it or, you know. I wish I would have just asked her questions about, you know, who she was, how she met my grandpa, like, you know, understanding more about her as a woman, instead of just as this kind of matriarch in the family. And you know, that, that opportunity is gone. So, you know, so I do have a little, it doesn't weigh on me, right. It doesn't, it doesn't hamper me instead. It fuels my future, which is. Also part of the work I do because now I say, okay, I'm going to have the conversation. You know, I'm going to record them. I'm going to go deeper. If I get curious, I'm going to ask the question.

Speaker:

Yeah. Well, and, and, and I really love that. And I think that that can apply to virtually any relationship that we have.

LeeAnn Marie Webster:

Yes. Yeah. What I find is that too often people are waiting for, Not waiting for that. There's something that happens and that starts to trigger the, Oh, wait, what am I doing? It's kind of like a wake up call and it's, you know, getting, getting fired or getting a diagnosis or having somebody close to you die or become ill or the fires that are happening you know, or the snow storm that's happening. And, you know, there's, Crazy weather everywhere, but sometimes we wait for that to happen to kind of shake us awake and say like, Oh, wait, what am I doing? Am I really living the life that I want? And my message is you don't need to wait for the drama. You can, you can start today thinking about this and making some shifts in your life.

Speaker:

Absolutely. And you're reminding me, and I actually wrote about this in my first book, but I had decided, I had retired eight years ago to become a health coach, then life coach, faith based, all, you know, the trans, the transition, but I had decided I was going to write a book and I had started, you know, putting things together, whatever, but life kept getting in the way and it wasn't getting done. And then came along my breast cancer diagnosis. And it was one of those stop in the tracks moments when it was like, you know, before I knew anything about it, other than I was, I had the diagnosis, I didn't know how severe or anything, but I just remember thinking, okay, God, if this, this is it. What do I need? Where's my legacy? What do I need to leave? Right. And the answer I got was finish the book. Wow. So I had been so busy working on the podcast and doing this and doing that. And I literally did an episode on Longing for More called Permission to Pause. Wow. And it was just like, put all of those things on hold and get this done. And it truly was a gift. I know most people would say, what, breast cancer, a gift, are you kidding me? But it was just that, that wake up call, that nudge that I needed to do something that needed to get done.

LeeAnn Marie Webster:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Yeah.

LeeAnn Marie Webster:

You know, you're bringing up something so important that is I, I believe there's power in all of us, right? Is the the power to, to choose. The cancer, right? The power to say, you know what? This is actually good thing that happened to me. I

Speaker:

was gonna say, I don't know that I would choose. Okay,

LeeAnn Marie Webster:

okay.

Speaker:

I chose to view it as something that God could turn to good.

LeeAnn Marie Webster:

Yes, yes. You chose to trust in God. Yes. God is not going to give me this. This condition this path this if I'm if I wouldn't be able to handle it. And if there's not something here for me to help me with the work that I'm on the planet to do. So, that's what I mean for choosing. Yeah, yeah,

Speaker:

yeah. Okay. I know. I agree. So, One of the things that I like to talk about is we touched on it before we hit record. And that is in my career. I, I talk about in Courageous Retirement. It isn't always, you know, after retire, it's also the courage to retire. But it's also the courage to do the things, to finish well, to do the things that we've had on our heart to do in our career that maybe we haven't allowed ourself time to get done. And I, part of my story is when I, when I was cleaning my office. And, had all of that going on. I was trying to do some editing, and I was like, Oh my God, I forgot that I have to put this in the file. and then the phone would start ringing and the emails would start coming in and I never got back to him. And so it was like. That honestly, if I had a regret, it would, it would be that I could go back and really do some of those amazing things while I still had the opportunity. Can you speak to that at all?

LeeAnn Marie Webster:

Yeah, absolutely. You know, the, this is the importance of having a a plan and I believe having support in, it could be in a variety of forms, but having, you know, working with someone like, you know, a coach, a mentor, even, even a friend as an accountability buddy to, to bring forward what is really important and then to create a path for you for how to get there. And then and then help you stay on the path, you know, and decide, you know, you might start down the path on something and say, ah, you know, I don't, I don't really care about this anymore. Like you could have started the book. And then at some point said, you know what, cause I really don't think I want to write a book or, and I want to write this book and you could have put it aside, but being intentional about that instead of just letting it kind of sit over there and gather dust. You know,

Speaker:

drift, yeah,

LeeAnn Marie Webster:

so two things,

Speaker:

two things on that one, what's coming up for me is if you're still in the work world and you can relate to that, he's got these big things that I want to do is like find somebody in your work community or a friend, if it's not, if it's not appropriate in the work, but to like, Write it down, put it on, put it somewhere where you can go back and check in once a while. But then have somebody to talk to about, is this still important? Should we be working on this or should I get rid of it and get rid of the space that it's taking up in my mind, right? Exactly.

LeeAnn Marie Webster:

Exactly. Cause yeah, that stack, I would argue that that stack, took a little bit of energy every time we saw it, you know, because you knew there's a part of your brain that knew there's unfinished business over there. And and it probably, and it tugs at you a little, it's subtle,

Speaker:

right?

LeeAnn Marie Webster:

It's not even there anymore. And it's so, and so there's a lot of power in just clearing that space and freeing up the energy so something else can come through.

Speaker:

Yeah, yeah. No, I think that that's beautiful. The other thing that came up as you were talking about that and I shared with it earlier too was, and I've shared it on previous episodes, is a story about my mom. It doesn't always have to be big things like writing a book or finishing projects at work. And my mom's story was that, at 80, she had started painting again. She had painted when us kids, like after we had left. The house and she had the time and then, you know, like that busy and she was either too busy or she didn't have the right light or she didn't have the right space and years, decades went by where she hadn't picked up her paintbrush, the thing that brought her joy. And at 80, she had started again and was really excited about that and was actually entering her very first art show. And, and she paused that day as I was helping her set up for the art show. And she just said, you know, I feel like I've wasted my whole life. And of course she hadn't because she'd done so many amazing things, but it's a good reminder that we can, life can just consume even the things that bring us joy. They can take those away from us if we let it, if we're not intentional, right?

LeeAnn Marie Webster:

Yeah. And that's really the key message is being intentional, you know, and, and looking at where am I spending my time and, and, you know, not getting on the, I call it the groundhog day. Kind of wheel right like you kind of you get up and then you go go to work or you know, whatever it is If you're retired, maybe you go play golf or you do but it's like you get in this routine and then it's kind of like Once you get comfortable in a routine, then it's like, ah, tomorrow I'll, you know, do X or Y or Z or plan the trip or whatever. The, the other thing I really want to bring forward is you bring a great point forward that it doesn't have to be big things. Sometimes we think about big things, right. And taking a big trip or, you know, selling the house or moving somewhere, you know, retiring, or it can really be, and there's a lot of gold in what I would call micro Micro action, right, which could be just saying I love you more to your spouse or your children, or, you know, taking that time to have a conversation with your children instead of just, you know, texting or, you know, having doing the utilitarian part of the call, but like, you know, having a conversation about what's really important to them or to you. Spending time with friends. It can be, you know, being a great neighbor or being a great you know, what, if you're, it might be being a great golfer, that's your thing when you're doing whatever it is, you know? Yeah.

Speaker:

Yeah. Thanks for bringing that up because I think especially for people, this is on courageous retirement and people at this age, I mean, I think sometimes we For me personally, and many of the people I've spoken with, have a tendency to, if we've worked our full career at doing a certain thing, we, we, we put our, our identity on the title, the paycheck, the, the, just being who that is. And, and to shift that perspective and that identity more towards, you know, who we're being and who we're serving and what we're doing and serving can be in a small way. It can be playing with the grandkids like you talked about, you know, wishing you had spent more time with your grandmother. Yeah, but being that grandmother and spending the time and sharing those stories can be priceless.

LeeAnn Marie Webster:

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I think there's a lot of little moments for us to grab onto with that and, and being very present with it. And then and you know, and there's the bigger things too, right? Like, Hey, I never, I'm going to take painting lessons or I never went to Italy. I want to go to Italy. I mean,

Speaker:

And I will just, you know, to me, when I talk of courageous retirement and the courage isn't the, I've said the courage isn't the hand gliding and the, you know, things like that. It's the courage to have the conversations to do the things that have meaning for us. And sometimes it's hard. Sometimes we need to have a difficult conversation with someone, or sometimes there's something we want to do, something we dreamed about. But we don't necessarily even have the confidence that we can do it. Maybe you've always wanted to paint, but you don't know whether you can even do it. And it's scary to do something we're not used to. Totally.

LeeAnn Marie Webster:

This brings up another layer too, which is The really tuning in to, to, it's like the why and the who, right? Cause I think what also happens is, especially if we've been in a career for a long time or, and like you said, our identity gets wrapped up in that our identity can also get wrapped up in the roles that we play within our family or within our community or, or and, and we, we kind of box ourselves in sometimes, right? I'm. I'm a grandmother, so I can't go learn something new. I'm a, you know, I'm an ex, so I can't do this. And sometimes we take on other people's perceptions or expectations of us, and we don't really even realize it, and we don't stop to think. Hey, is this what I want? Like, what am I interested in? What do I love to do? You know, who am I in this? And, and kind of stepping out of the, the proverbial box to make sure that, you know, in this next phase, you're doing what really matters to you and not just what you should or somebody else thinks you should be doing.

Speaker:

Yeah. I'm so glad that you brought that up. What coming up for me on that topic is, And I talk about this kind of from the perspective of young people and sometimes We, as the older, wiser, having lived it all person, can project our expectations and our life onto those young people and cause them to let go of who they really are and the dreams that they really have because they feel that they owe it to us to go do this thing that we always, maybe we've even talked about doing it before and then we've changed our mind. And, and so as. As that older, wiser person, I'm going to say, really listen to those young people in, in your lives. And when they're struggling with something, find out if maybe you can help them change their own perspective of themselves or change the road that they're on. Because there is no, there is no wrong path. There is no, Right. Yeah. We, we have to be able to like you said, be intentional and, and shift if that's appropriate. We don't have to stay on that path. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. You have the power. That's what my, really, if I, if I boil down what I'm all about I have, I have a framework called the power path, which is an acronym and it's about taking your own power back, but that that's really my big message. And I think that's a really important thing to keep in mind, even within the regret message is that you have the power of how you interact with that, with other people and with, with what you're creating. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. And I think that really kind of leads us to that next thing. So if someone's listening to this. And they're like, Oh, Oh, wow. I really, really need to have what Leanne's talking about here. I need that help with that power path. How could they get ahold of you? Or what. Do you have something that can help them get started on that?

LeeAnn Marie Webster:

Of course. Of course. If you go to well, the easiest way is just go to my main website, which is my whole name, Leanne Marie Webster. A lot of E's in there, and on there I have a no regrets formula, the power path. There'll be some information about that up soon. We're updating the site. And there's also information there about how I work with people. So there's that's a great resource. And then if you're on Instagram, I'm on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook I think Instagram is probably my favorite, and that's just Leanne M. Webster. So, okay. And I post a lot of interesting things there. I post a lot of, you know, I do these regret release. I have this regret release method. And so when I speak in person, I have people do these, releasing their regrets. And so I post these as well as other like. Kind of things I do out in the public. So

Speaker:

beautiful. I love that. That is wonderful. So Leanne, what is one, like if, if you could just lay it all out there, what is, maybe it's something we haven't talked about yet, or it's something that's really important that you want to make sure that the guests leave with today, what would be that message that you could leave with us?

LeeAnn Marie Webster:

The really the big message is that you can use your your past any regret or accomplishment or whatever to fuel your future that, you know, the past is an awesome resource for you. And, and we don't need to live in there, but we can use it to help us move forward powerfully and intentionally.

Speaker:

I love that. I love that. And it really aligns with what I believe I call the breadcrumbs. You know, God gives us the breadcrumbs on the path. And if we sometimes, especially at retirement, when we are shifting the path that we're on and we're, we're using this, what I call the best season to fill our lives with the things that bring us joy. Sometimes we can look back at both the good things and the regrets. And use them to really embrace this, this season of life. So beautiful, beautiful. Thank you so much for joining us today. It's really been a lot of fun to have this conversation. And I just pray that there are people that are listening today going, yes, I can take the power. I can, I can move from here and really live all out. So.

LeeAnn Marie Webster:

Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. And I love the work that you're doing in the world.

Speaker:

Likewise.

Speaker 2:

So. What are you going to do differently because of this conversation? How are you going to move forward with no regrets? Now in reality, we're always going to have regrets. I don't know about you, but there are times when I am on the phone, it's generally with a telemarketer. Or a service provider that hasn't given me the answer I want and my snap reaction is to do just that, to snap at them, to say something that's not appropriate. And hopefully before I hang up the phone or walk away from a conversation, I will catch myself and I will stop, take a breath and ask for their forgiveness to apologize and tell them that I didn't mean to take my frustration out on them and ask them to have a good day or whatever. Literally a couple of weeks ago, I had a conversation with someone. And wasn't really pleased with how the conversation went. And I was doing my Bible study that evening, and as I was doing it, I was just so convicted by the Holy Spirit. And I literally went back, called the phone number again, and fortunately got the same operator or desk representative, and I just said, I am really sorry, I apologize for behaving the way that I did. And he was like, oh, it's no big deal, and I'm like, yeah, it is. You deal with real problems in the world. You don't need crabby people on top of it. So I'm just going to challenge you that yes, we're going to do things. We want to go full out. We want to live life in the big things, but we also want to be the representative that we are. in the little things. And so I'm going to ask you to think about how you can take those small actions and live with no regret. Now if you struggle with this, first of all I'm going to ask you to get in the word and and pray and ask the Holy Spirit to guide you. He's always there and ready to do that. But if you need a little additional help, go to Leanne or give me a call or find someone in your circle of friends that can help talk through some of those things so that you too can live with no regrets. We'll always have small regrets, but there are things that we can do to mitigate that. Thank you so much for stopping by today. It's really been a blessing to have you here. Come back in two weeks, next few episodes, we're going to talk about how to stay active in our senior years. And then another episode, we're going to talk about how to write our story. How can we get our story down so that others can benefit and we can actually truly leave that legacy of faith for others. So again, thanks for stopping by. I look forward to seeing you back here next time. And until then, I pray that you will live with all the benefits of courageous retirement. God bless.