What if thinking about death could actually make you more alive?
On Season 3, Episode 7 of What's The Tea with Sarah E, I sit down with Jodi Wellman - speaker, bestselling author, positive psychology expert, founder of Four Thousand Mondays, and the brilliant mind behind You Only Die Once: How to Make It to the End with No Regrets.
And yes... we talk about death. A lot.
But this episode is really about LIFE.
Jodi's fascination with mortality became deeply personal after losing her mother in her late 50s. While cleaning out her apartment, Jodi found herself surrounded by what she calls the \"land of dormant intentions\" - creative ideas, business plans and dreams her mother always intended to pursue \"someday.\" That heartbreaking experience became a wake-up call: Jodi didn't want to reach the end of her own life surrounded by coulda, shoulda, wouldas.
Today, her work challenges us to confront the uncomfortable truth that our time here is finite - and use that awareness not to fear death, but to create urgency around living.
In this hilarious, vulnerable and surprisingly life-affirming conversation, Jodi spills the tea on:
And then things get personal...
I took Jodi's How Alive Are You? quiz before the interview and discovered that I'm apparently...
\"Vitally Empty.\" 😂
With an 8/10 for vitality and 4/10 for meaning, we unpack what that actually means - and have a candid conversation about high achievement, deriving so much meaning from work, relationships, friendship, and what happens when one area of our lives becomes disproportionately responsible for making us feel fulfilled.
This one challenged me.
Because you can have a life that's exciting, successful, colourful and packed with experiences... and still ask whether you're giving enough time to the things that will matter when you reach the end of it.
Jodi's work reminds us that mortality isn't something we need to run from. Sometimes remembering that we're going to die is precisely what we need to wake the f*ck up to being alive. And by the end of our conversation, I was ready to go write my mini bucket list and, in my own words, \"live the f*ck out of my life.\"
Season 3, Episode 7 - Wake the Fck Up to Life: Jodi Wellman on Death, Regret & Becoming Astonishingly Alive* is streaming now on What's The Tea with Sarah E.
Connect with Jodi - Explore Jodi's work, take the How Alive Are You? quiz, learn more about Four Thousand Mondays, and find her book You Only Die Once through Four Thousand Mondays. You can also follow Jodi on Instagram at fourthousand@mondays.
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