The Mindset Mentor - Are You Afraid of Dying?

Episode Date: October 18, 2019

The #1 fear of people is death. In this episode, I am going to tell you why a life unlived is WAY scarier than dying.Follow me on Instagram @RobDialJr https://www.instagram.com/robdialjr/Get your free trial of Blinkist at https://blinkist.com/mindset Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube

Welcome to today's episode. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another episode. Today, we're going to be diving in and I'm going to get vulnerable with you, I guess you could say. Maybe a little bit, maybe not too much. I'm going to talk about my biggest fear in the entire world. not too much. I'm going to talk about my biggest fear in the entire world. And I know that for most people, fear is what actually holds them back from doing what it is that they want to do. I remember that I was in a, and I have some episodes coming out soon about my, you know,

my plant medicine, my psychedelic experience and all that stuff, which I ask, you know, just listen to it, put no judgment in and just listen with open ears. And one of the things that I remember hearing and learning was that fear is the absolute worst thing that exists in the world. Fear is the worst thing that exists in the world. No matter what you believe or what you don't believe or what your religion is or any of those things, we can all agree that our purpose is to try to become the most quote-unquote enlightened versions of ourselves and to try to help others as much as we possibly can and to try to leave this world a better place. But what I learned was that fear is the number one thing that holds us back from helping others, from becoming the most enlightened

or the best version of ourself, or from actually growing into who it is that we need to be. And so I realized that fear is the absolute worst thing in the world. And so I'm going to tell you what my number one fear in the world is. It's not heights. We actually climbed on Sedona yesterday. We actually climbed at 857 feet is what we climbed to the top of what's called Cathedral Rock out here. So I'm slowly coming over, getting over my heights. It's not spiders that I'm afraid of. To be honest with you, it's not death that I'm afraid of. What I am actually most afraid of is living a life unlived, getting to the end of my life and realizing that I could have done more. You know, I've read the book and it's a great book if you want to read it, or you can just Google her, look her up on YouTube,

The Five Regrets of the Dying. The number one regret is that I wish I lived a life that was true to myself and not the life that others expected of me. And the lady who wrote this book was a hospice nurse. So she was around people dying all of the time. And they came out to her on their deathbed and said, hey, this is what I regret. This is what I regret. This is what I regret. And the number one, one, like the number one thing that they actually regret the most was that I wish I lived a life that was true to myself and not what others expected of me. So what are you fearing? Because most people fear death. They fear death because ultimately, life is the only thing that we know. And anything that we don't know automatically turns into something that we fear. Because our brain automatically sees change as a threat. So I say this, don't fear death.

Death is something that you should be okay with because no matter what, we all have been dying since the day we were born. You know, you fear death because all you know is life. The knowledge that I am going to die though brings focus for me to actually want to be alive, to be alive, to put as much into every single day. The urgency, the passion, the purpose in my life, death is what brings those

to me. So my number one fear is not death like most people. My number one fear is actually living a life unlived, without purpose, without changing the world or changing other people or leaving some sort of impact on it. You know, a lot of people talk about legacy. If I'm being honest with you, I don't care about my legacy. I don't. When I die, you know, people can say whatever they want. They can say great things. They can say he changed the world. They can say he made millions of podcasts and helped a lot of people and all those things, which is what I hope to do. But I don't care about what they say about me after I die. I care about what I do while I'm alive. The worst thing that I could think about is to get to the end of my life, to be on my deathbed

and to think that I could have done more, that I could have helped more people, that I could have loved more, that I could have put my passion out or help other people more in some sort of way. So don't fear death. Fear living a life unlived. A life unlived is just a waste of space, a waste of oxygen. Don't let the fear of death hold you back. Let it push you forward and bring urgency into what you need to do before you end up leaving. You know, I remember watching Larry King. He was interviewing Neil, I think Neil deGrasse Tyson, Neil Tyson deGrasse. I never know which one is, what's actual, which one comes first in this guy's name. And he was interviewing him and he said, Larry King said, if you could live forever, would you? And Neil said, no, I wouldn't. He said, and the reason why is because knowing that I'm going to

die puts the urgency into every single one of my days because I'm not guaranteed to wake up tomorrow. I'm not guaranteed to wake up the next day. You know, there was 150,000 people that died yesterday. You know, there was 150,000 people that died yesterday. There's going to be 150,000 people that die today and tomorrow and the next day. Well, guess what? We weren't one of them yesterday. So shouldn't that put some urgency into what our life is? You know, make you want to work harder into helping people, make you want to love harder, make you want to appreciate more,

right? I remember that one of my favorite quotes was Brad Pitt in the movie Troy. He said, the gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because at any moment, that moment might be our last. And because of that, everything is more beautiful because we are doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are right now. You will never be here again. That's the best part about being alive. The best part about being a human is that we're going to die. Isn't that crazy? But so many people fear death. So many people don't do the things that they want to because they're afraid of death. So many people don't love as much as they want to because there's some sort of fear holding them back. So if I were to try to persuade you into having your biggest fear be something different than it currently is, it would be that you have a fear of a life unlived. That should give you the urgency to get

your butt off the couch and to freaking do something today. Do something tomorrow. Do something next day. You know, Alan Watts, I love listening to Alan Watts and I would recommend listening to him. He died in the seventies, I think. And out of all philosophers, everybody that I listened to, I'd say Alan Watts is the number one person where I'm just like, this guy, he just seems to get life. And that's what he says. He says that, you know, the greatest part about being a human is that one day we will die and it gives us a reason to get up and actually start doing something with ourselves, right? The anticipation of death should motivate you, right? Do you want to, here, I'll tell you this, one of the things that really gave me a lot of purpose, you know,

like I told you guys from the beginning, I said in the last episode actually too, that my father's death was one of the things that really put a fire under my ass and made me want to start putting something together and really start doing something with my life because I had never known death before. If you really want to get a fire under your butt,

go to a hospice, right? A hospice, if you guys don't know, is where somebody goes to die. Like they know that they're at the end of theirice, right? A hospice, if you guys don't know, is where somebody goes to die. Like they know that they're at the end of their road, right? Go to a hospice and see if you don't get motivated to get your butt in gear, to push yourself harder, to have more appreciation, to love more, to be more empathetic,

to show people that you care about them more, right? I remember when my grandfather was in hospice. Man, I don't know if you guys have ever been into a hospice before, but the people in there are incredible. All of the nurses and the workers, they were just angels. They were just incredible people. It made me want to start volunteering my time at hospices because being around people who are on the edge of dying makes you realize a couple

things. Number one, yours is going to come sooner or later, right? And we always, always start thinking differently about our life when someone that we know dies. We start thinking, man, is there any purpose in what I'm doing? Should I be doing more? Should I be trying to help more? That's the first thing that it's going to do. It's going to put a little bit more focus into your life. Number two, it's also going to show you that you need to have more empathy for people as well, right? There's people there that don't have anybody, like nobody. My grandfather, I was in the room when he passed away. It was my, you know, there was everybody in my family came back. I have a huge family. There's about 35, 40 of us that flew in and stay with my grandpa for a week.

And it was amazing. And it was great. And the saddest thing was that there were 10 other rooms and there were some rooms that people didn't walk into. I thought to myself, oh my God, like how terrible, how, how terrible must that be to know that you're about to go and there's no one around you. Right. And I, I don't know if it's their fault. I don't know if it's the family's fault, whatever it is, but it also shows you, man, some people might've focused too much on themselves or just their business or money and not actually

loving people more because that's really what matters. And I'll tell you this, one of the most beautiful, I am, I am so grateful, so grateful. Like I would say one of the most beautiful moments of my life was being in the room when my grandfather passed away, right? He wanted someone to stay with him each night. And so we had a whole bunch of people that were in town. The whole family was in town, right? Everybody came in town for this celebration of this incredible human. And my cousin, Danielle, and I were the two people who stayed with him that night. And he was snoring. He was snoring all night, snoring and snoring and snoring. Literally from the second he went to bed, he was just snoring. And then about three o'clock in the morning, the snoring just stopped. And both of us woke up and we're like, you know, first off,

I was like, first thought in my head was, God, he finally stopped snoring, right? And the second thought was, oh crap, we might need to check on him. We checked on him and he had passed. I thought to myself, whoa, like I would not, at that moment, I would not have rather been anywhere else in the world because there's something beautiful about realizing like that just happened. Like somebody just left their body. And that's beautiful. It's sad. You know, we didn't want it to happen.

But at the same time, it gives you so much appreciation for life. Gives you so much appreciation because you go, you know what? That will be me one day. You know, that will be me. I will stop breathing at some point in time. And my goal is to have 35, 40 of my family members fly in exactly like my grandfather did because that shows that he loved. He loved and he did so much in his life. There were other people that I felt so bad for, and I don't know if it was their fault that there wasn't people there, and I'm not going to judge anybody. What I do know is that being around those people made me have more empathy for people as

well. So don't fear the fact that you're going to die. The anticipation of your death should motivate you to do more. And as Alan Watts says, every person, every person should ponder their own death every single day. It's not depressing. It's motivating to know it's going to happen. You know, if you're sitting on the couch, you're just scrolling through Instagram and the thought comes into your head, one day I'm going to die. Am I doing what I want to right now? And if you want to, if you're, if being on Instagram is what you want to do with your head, one day I'm going to die. Am I doing what I want to right now? And if you want to, if you're, if being on Instagram is what you want to do with your life, so be it. That's fine. There's no judgment. There is no right or wrong in this world, but it might just make you go, you know what? I don't think this is it. Maybe I'll go and run to Wendy's, get out,

you know, buy five hamburgers and go give them out to some homeless people. Give them out to people who need it a little bit more. Maybe I'll go do something good today for somebody else, as I always say. Go to a hospice and get more motivated to get your butt in gear, to push you to love harder, to have more appreciation, to work harder, to follow your passion, to create, to paint, to put music out, to do whatever it is that you want to do. So don't be scared of death. Realize it's coming. Think about it every day. I think about my death every single day and I think that's why I love my life as much as I do. So think about it and realize it's coming, but use that feeling. Don't use that feeling to get you to feel, holy crap, I'm sad. I don't feel good. I don't want to think about it, but use

that feeling of I'm not afraid of it. What I'm afraid of is getting to that hospice, sitting on my deathbed and going, oh my God, I could have done more. I don't want to feel like I wasted my life. And I don't think you want to as well. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. I'm going to go ahead. And as I said, I'm going to start sharing some good deeds with you guys. As I always say, I end every single episode with the obvious thing is if you've listened to any of my episodes, make it your mission to make someone else's day better. And we got an email from Ezekiel and Ezekiel said this. He said, I did a good deed recently. And this is to inspire you guys to go do good deeds for other people as well. And when you do them, send me an email, rob at robdial.com. Let me know what the good deed is

so I can give a shout out so that you can inspire other people as well through this podcast. Ezekiel said, I did a good deed recently, and it was to help my brother-in-law's friend who's down on his luck. He's homeless and wanting a better life. One night last week, I believe it was Tuesday, he was filling up five water gallon bottles and I saw him skateboarding around the parking lot as he passed me. He noticed me and he stopped and we had a small conversation. He advised me that he was trying to get his life better. He was trying to get his GED. He was trying to work and get his food handlers license. And I know that he's a good person, but lack of stimuli on daily motivation. Without thinking, I advised him to come show up at my home on Friday morning

so he could clean out my car and I would pay him some funds for exchange for his work. Friday AM, he was there, 9 AM waiting outside. I saw his face and he was very appreciative of the small opportunity I offered to him. As he cleaned the outside of my car, I played him one of your many podcasts. That's awesome. I love that. I played him one of your many podcasts on how to better yourself. And I saw, I'm going to tear up just reading this. And I saw him enjoying them and he would mouth the words of acknowledgement. After I finished, I educate him on how to break. God, I'm going to break down just reading this.

I educate him on how to break down his goals into smaller daily goals, and he was in awe. I then invited him inside of my apartment and cooked him breakfast for both of us, since I knew he was homeless and didn't want him to go without a home cooked meal. We then proceeded to the bank where I gave him his compensation and sent him on his way. His last words that he left me was, thanks for showing me all of those podcasts. So that's awesome. Sorry, guys, just teared up a little bit. So, well, that was unexpected. It was funny. I read the email a little while ago. I didn't tear up, but then I just thought about, man, this is like this podcast. Like I'm recording this. If you guys want to know, because the fact that we're traveling, I'm recording this inside of a closet right now because I'm not at home in my home studio.

And it's cool because I'm recording this podcast in a closet because of the fact that obviously I want it to sound good. So obviously it sounds better when there's the clothes around because they take all of the sound from bouncing off the walls. And it's cool to think that me sitting inside of a closet recording this and putting this out to you guys can go through your car, through this guy's car, into this guy's ears and help this guy who's homeless. And maybe, just maybe, it helped him. And I think that it did. So if you guys want to do a good deed for somebody, please do. You don't have to email me if you want to, but I would love

to share these stories at the end of each one of the episodes so that we can all inspire each other to do something good for somebody else. So as always, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you. I hope that you have an amazing day. And once again, when you do a good deed, if you want to be anonymous, it's completely cool. Just send me an email, rob at robdial.com, and I will share it with everybody as well. Have a great day.