The Mindset Mentor - How to NOT Live with Regrets

Episode Date: November 9, 2020

My biggest fear is to get to the end of my life and wish that I would've done more with my time on Earth. In this episode, I am going to teach you how to live a life free from regrets. What's most important is to make sure that when you get to the end of your life, you feel pride for what you did and how you lived.Follow me on Instagram @RobDialJr https://instagram.com/robdialjr 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 of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. And if you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another episode. And if you want to receive motivational text messages directly to your cell phone, then text me right now. My number is 1-512-580-9305. Once again, 1-512-580-9305. Today, we're going to be talking about how to stop living your life with regrets. And the reason why is because today I put up a status of Instagram story on my Instagram. If you guys don't follow me on Instagram yet, it's Rob Dial Jr. R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And I put something up today and I asked the question and I got thousands of responses. But I said, are you working the job that you love, like the job of your dreams? And I had a few

thousand people respond to it. But then the next thing I asked the question was, why are you not living the job of your dreams? Why are you not working the job that you absolutely love? Over 400 responses to that one question so far. And the number one thing that I'm seeing is other people's opinions. I'm afraid because of what my mom might say about me, what my brother or sister, what my family expects of me. And I was like, man, that's crazy because people are going to get to the end of their life. And I was like, man, that's crazy because people are going to get to the end of their life. And this is what I talked about on my Instagram story. If you go and follow me now, you'll be able to see it, is that you have one life to live. And the number

one regret, and I'm going to go over the regrets with you, is that I wish I lived a life that was true to myself and not the life that others expressed of me. And so today we're going to be talking about the five regrets of the dying. And there's a book there's a book called the five regrets of the dying. You don't necessarily need to read it because I'm going to basically give you the entire summarization right now, but it's a lady who was a nurse and she cared for people who are terminally ill. She was, she was in a hospice and she was caring for people that knew there was no other part of their life. Like they were done in hospice. they know they're going to die. And over a period of eight years, she noticed some very common regrets over and over and

over and over and over again with these people who are dying. And I'm going to go over each one of them. But the very first one, which is what made me decide that I want to go ahead and put this episode out. The number one regret of the dying was that I wish I lived a life that was true to myself and not the life that others expected of me. How crazy is it that you get one life, but the number one regret that people have is that they wish they didn't do what other people wanted them to do. They wish they lived a life that they wanted to live and not the life that

their parents wanted them to live, their family wanted them to live. The society wanted them to live. You know, maybe they didn't want to become a doctor, but they only did that because their parents told them to, or because they felt like they were supposed to get money. And that's what the life was all about. And then they get to end their life and they're like, man, I really wish I would have just opened up an orphanage and taught children there, whatever it is that they wanted to do. But most people live lives that just allow them to fit in. And I think I said this a few weeks ago, but there's an amazing quote that I love from Jim Carrey. It talks about fitting in. He says, your need for acceptance will make you invisible in this world. And there's too many people out there that don't follow their passions because they're too afraid of what other people might think or what

other people might say. How crazy is that? How sad is that? That people have 60, 70, 80, 90, a hundred years, and they don't do what they truly want. I think that the worst thing, my biggest fear is not judgment. My biggest fear is not rejection. My biggest fear is not any of those things. My biggest fear is I'm going to get to the end of my life in regret that wish that I didn't do what I truly wanted to do. So what drives me every single day is to get up and do something that I love and to not die wishing that I would have done something different. Isn't it crazy that we allow what others think of us to come in the way of the life that we truly want, right? We have one life, the best that we know, we have one life. And we're floating on a tiny little rock through an infinite

amount of space with billions of stars and billions of planets and possibly billions of other galaxies. And we let other people's freaking opinions of us matter so much that we don't live the life that we want to? It's freaking crazy. So one of the things that she says is before a lady named Grace passed that she was working with her, one of the ladies regretted living a life

that was not true to herself. And the thing that she said to her before she passed away was live true to your own heart. Don't ever worry what other people, what other people think of you. She said, make this promise to me before I die. Because she regretted, this lady Grace regretted so much that she wasted her life. So what can we learn from that? We need to live life on our terms. If people don't like what we do, the hell with them. It's not their issue. It's our life.

This is your one shot at life. Do what you're passionate about. Do what's always in the back of your mind. Is there something always in the back of your mind that you're always wanting to do, but you haven't done it? Or you've kind of dipped your toes into it, but you won't fully commit? There's an amazing quote that says, if you can't stop thinking about it, don't stop working for it.

So that's the first regret is that I wish to live a life that's true to myself and not the life that others expected of me. The second regret of the dying is that I wish I hadn't worked so hard. This one really hit me the first time I read this book because I used to be the person that was like, I took pride in working harder than anybody else. I took pride in working 110 hours a week for three years straight, never seeing the sun because I was in my office the whole time before the sun came up. I left my office after the sun went down. And she said a lot of people who said this to her were men. And although I do love working hard, I love working hard for what I truly want. But the key is that there needs to be balance. She speaks of a man that worked so hard for 15 years with a

company. He worked to save up for his retirement so that he could travel with his wife. He worked so hard for 15 years and he worked and saved and worked and saved and worked and saved. Then he had his retirement. He wanted to go travel with his wife. And then when he was supposed to retire, he decided to stay one more year just to make sure that he had enough money saved. He figured he worked for 15. So what is one more year? It's not really a big deal, right? So his wife who had waited her whole life, waiting for him to finally retire said, okay, one more month or one more year, go ahead and do it. And then we're going to be done. We're going to retire and we're going to enjoy our lives. And three months before he was done with that final year, his wife died and he never got to travel with his wife. And he was filled with all of this grief at the end of his life because all

she wanted was time with him and she never got it. And she quotes him. The man says, I wish I hadn't worked so hard. I was a damn fool. I worked too damn hard. And now I'm a lonely dying man. The chase of the closing of a deal became addicting to me. And I had this wonderful woman that waited so patiently for me to retire. And now, of course, as I sit here dying, I see that just being a good person is more than enough in life. So why do we depend so much on the material world to validate us? It's just the chase for more and the need to be recognized through our achievements and belongings. And these hinder us from the real things in life, like times with the ones that we love,

time doing the things that we love to do. So there's nothing wrong with loving what you do. But now I really see it's really about balance. And that's what he had quoted her, well, quoted to her towards the end of his life, is that he regretted working so hard. So what can we learn from this? You know, it's okay to love what you do. It's okay to work hard if you're passionate about something.

But you got to have balance. You know, you weren't just born to just work your ass off, pay the bills and die, right? So don't work hard just for material things. Never lose sight of the fact that what actually truly matters in life is the people that you're around, the experiences that you have. It's not just about cars and house and new phones and all of those different types of things. And it's like the fight club. One of my favorite things from Fight Club where they say, as they say, advertise this has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs that we hate so we can buy things that we don't need. So if you're out there and you work hard, hey, it's not bad to work hard, but make sure you have balance. You've got to actually live your life and enjoy your life. So that's the second regret of the dime.

Hey everybody, let me tell you about one of my favorite apps on my phone. It's called Blinkist and enjoy your life. So that's the second regret of the dime. nonfiction bestselling books in over 27 categories. And Blinkist condenses them down into blinks, which you can read or listen to in just 15 minutes. And I like Blinkist because they're super short and they're to the point just like me. And I recommend that you listen to How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie. And right now, Blinkist has a special offer for our audience. If you go to Blinkist.com slash mindset, you can start your seven day free trial and get 25% off of Blinkist premium membership and up to 65% off audio books. That's Blinkist spelled B-L-I-N-K-I-S-T.com slash mindset to get 25% off your premium membership and the seven day free trial offer Blinkist.com slash mindset.

day free trial offer, Blinkist.com slash mindset. The third regret of the dying is that I wish I had the courage to express my feelings. One thing I work with, I've worked with thousands of people over the past decade, 14 years now. One of the things that I realized with the Western world is that we are not trained to feel. We're trained not to feel things. We're trained to go off of our head, not off of our heart. I'd ask people, what is your intuition saying? Like, I don't even know. I don't even know what intuition feels like, you know? And in the book, she gives an example of a man that she took care of who was a Holocaust survivor who at the end of his life was sad that he never really let anybody in. And he just kept his armor up all the time. And he was regretting that because he felt like he never let his own wife

and kids even really know who he truly was his entire life. And he regretted never being vulnerable with them and finding who his true self was. So he was guarded and had his armor up all the time, and he was never able to get vulnerable and figure out who he truly was, but then also have everybody else see as well. You know, we can learn a lot from this and I won't go too in depth on it, but you know, the thing that I think is that there's a whole lot of power and vulnerability. There's a great book by Brene Brown called Daring Greatly. She's got a bunch of really great books, but Daring Greatly talks about how the key to having a real deep, meaningful life is vulnerability because it teaches you how to feel more. Feel more lows, but also feel more highs. So what can we learn from it?

We don't need to be closed off. How about we open up to the people we love? Have you been out there your entire life and never opened up to people that you're truly the closest with? Because here's the thing. I always say this to people before they start working with me,

is people always say after they start working with me, I never even actually knew who I was. And the reason why is because they keep their armor up and they keep their walls up. And my job is to try to help them break it down. And then they find a new version of themselves. So that's the third regret of the dying. The fourth regret of the dying is that I wish I stayed in touch with my friends. The author said that a lot of people towards the end of their lives start to realize that they work too hard. They moved and then they just lost touch with their friends, the people who they felt really truly mattered. Even if they were close to them, even if they were in the same city, they lost touch with them. And they were

lonely at the end of their lives because they let those friends slip away. And they regretted not keeping in touch with them every day of their life and trying to actually develop a relationship versus just developing and climbing the corporate ladder. And so what can we learn from this? You know, let's stay in touch with the ones who actually truly matter to us. Let's not work every single day. Let's figure out a way to keep in touch with the people who matter and not just be so busy that work gets in the way of the relationships. You know, I'll ask you a question. Who's a friend that you missed that you haven't seen in a while? Is there someone that pops up in your head? If there is, take some time right now and text them. You know, if you're driving, don't text them, text them later. But if I ask you the

question, who's someone that you miss, you haven't seen in a while and boom, someone pops up. That's your brain. That's the universe. That's something telling you that you need to connect that person. Can you call them today? Can you text them today? Can you send them a Facebook message, Instagram message, whatever it is. Reconnect with somebody. Can I give you a challenge? I want you to reconnect with someone that you haven't seen in a really long time that you miss sometime this week. Go get coffee. Go get lunch. Go get breakfast. Go for a walk around the park. Do something to connect with that person again. Think about that for a second. What can you do to connect deeper to the ones that you truly love? Because guys,

listen, I love to work. I love to make money. I love to feel like I'm successful and all those things. But if you're all alone, there's no success in that. You can be the richest person in the world, but you're all alone. I don't see that as successful. I see success as doing what you want with who you want whenever you want. But the key part of that is who you want to have around you. So that's the fourth regret of the dying. And the fifth most common regret of people who are dying is that I wish I let myself be happier. I wish I let myself be happier. I wish I let myself be happier. This one's challenging because how often,

because of the fact that we don't allow ourselves to be vulnerable, we don't allow ourselves to fully express who we are. We kind of close off and we learn to kind of just be more emotionless over time that we don't feel as much happiness as we could. Here's the thing. If you close off yourself to the lows and you don't want to feel the lows and you want to just close off, you're also closing yourself off to feel the highs. And with advertisements constantly telling us that we're not good enough, we're not smart enough, we're not fit enough, we're not thin enough, we're not pretty enough. And you know, the cars and houses and clothes and all of those things that we have are not good enough. It's easy to feel like you're not pretty enough and you know the cars and houses and clothes and all of those things that we have are not good enough it's easy to feel like you're not good enough because some of the best psychologists in the world work for advertising companies because they know if they can hit that

button of not enough then it makes you feel like i'm not enough until i buy this thing the great thing is is that happiness is a choice. It's not some, you know, BS lofty fairy dust sprinkling phrase that I'm using here. Your happiness really is a choice. Happiness doesn't come from going in the external world and getting the things and accomplishing the things that you want. Happiness is a state of being that you set before you go out into your day. If you just decide every single morning, I'm going to be happy. I'm going to feel joy. I'm going to feel emotion. I'm going to feel the best I've ever felt today. And you lock that state of emotion into yourself. You will be happier.

You don't have to go out and have things happen. You don't have to have the car that you want. You don't have to have the bank account that you want. You don't have to have the house that you want. None of those things have to be there yet. The external world will not make you want. You don't have to have the bank account that you want. You don't have to have the house that you want. None of those things have to be there yet. The external world will not make you happy. The internal world has to create happiness and then you bring that to the external world. We can allow ourselves to be happy by becoming grateful for what we have and the people that are already in our lives. Realizing that what we have is enough. Learning to love ourselves through self-talk, learning to do the things that we love to do every single day, to focus on being

happier and learning to let go of the past. There's nothing you can do with the past because you can't change anything that's happened to you in the past, but we can learn from the past and realize that we can be happy where we are and still make our life better. You know, there's people that think, oh, well, if I'm happy in this moment, if I allow myself to be too happy, then I might get stagnant and I might not go after my dreams. No, that's not the case. If you're happy in this moment, you're going to accomplish your dreams quicker because you're actually going out into the world and loving what you do.

So you have to realize that. What can you learn from this? You're going to live the best of our knowledge once, right? Maybe you live more times. Maybe there's reincarnation. Maybe there's not. I don't know. I've never died before to the best of my knowledge. But what we do know is that we do have this one life, right? And so what are the five regrets of people who are dying? Number one, I wish I had the courage to live the life that was true to myself and not the life that others expected of me. Number two, I wish I hadn't worked so hard. Number three, I wish I had the courage to express my feelings. Number four, I wish I stayed in touch with my friends. And number five, I wish I let myself be happier.

Listen guys, don't get to end your life in regret. Whatever your biggest fear is, fear of judgment, fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of running out of money, fear of being a bad parent, whatever your biggest fear is, can you figure out a way to change your biggest fear to the fear of getting to the end of your life and wishing that you would have done more, wishing that you would have done something different. That's my biggest fear. And what's great about it is when that's your biggest fear, it pushes you. It drives you to get more out of your life. It drives you to figure out a way to make your life richer. It drives you to figure out a way to make sure that your life is everything that you want it to be. Because we do know one

thing. We are going to die one day. And I really, really, really do not want to get to end of my life and wish that I would have done something differently. I want to look back and go, damn, I freaking crushed it. I don't know about you. That's how I want to feel. But if you listen to this, these are five regrets of people who are dying over a course of eight years. This woman spoke with hundreds of people who are terminally ill. And these are the five regrets that people who are dying. Over a course of eight years, this woman spoke with hundreds of people who are terminally ill. And these are the five regrets that people had the most. So what can you learn from this? Take these five regrets. Ask yourself, are there places in my life where I'm not being true to myself and I'm doing what other people want me to? Are there places in my life where I'm working too hard, where I should be spending time with people that

I truly love and enjoying my life? Are there places in my life where I'm working too hard, where I should be spending time with people that I truly love and enjoying my life? Are there places in my life where I should be expressing my feelings more? Are there places in my life where I should be letting my guard down with some people? Are there places in my life where I should be staying in touch with some of my best friends I haven't seen in a while? And are there places in my life where I'm not allowing myself to feel joy, happiness, love, and peace when I really should. Because ultimately, these are the things that matter. Don't get to the end in regret. That's what I got for you for today. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share with someone that you know and someone that you love. And I'm going to leave you the same way I

leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. As I said, I figured all of this out and wanted to do an episode on this because I just put up a podcast or I put up a status on my Instagram stories and people responded to it. So if you want to follow me, go ahead and follow me, Rob Dial Jr. R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R and tag me on your Instagram stories as well. And I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing, amazing, amazing day.