Episode 437: Design Your To-Die-For Life and Start Living With Purpose w/ Karen Salmansohn

Karen Salmansohn 0:03

I'm not an end of life doula, I'm a middle of life doula, on the beginning of life doula, while there's still runway left to make the changes you need to make, you can still make it now and then get excited about the rest of that runway.

Jamila Souffrant 0:20

Welcome to the journey. To launch podcast with your host Jamila Souffrant as a money expert who walks her talk she helps brave journeyers like you get out of debt, save, invest and build real wealth. Join her on the journey to launch to financial freedom in 54321, 1321,

Jamila Souffrant 0:48

episode. Show Notes for this episode. Go to journey to launch.com or click the description of wherever you're listening to this episode in the show notes, you'll get the transcribed version of the conversation, the links that we mentioned, and so much more also, whether you are an OG journey or brand new to the podcast, I've created a free jumpstart guide to help you on your financial freedom journey. It includes the top episodes to listen to, stages to go through to reach financial freedom resources and so much more you can go to journey to launch.com/jumpstart to get your guide right now. Okay, let's hop into the episode. Hey, hey, hey, journeyers, welcome to the journey to launch podcast today. I have a special guest. Her name is Karen salmanson. She is a best selling author and leading behavioral change expert, who is celebrated for blending research based psychological strategies with bold humor. With over 2 million books sold and courses sold, she has helped countless individuals shake off autopilot and start living with intention. Her new book, your to die for life, how to maximize joy and minimize regret before your time runs out. Challenges readers to rethink their relationship with mortality, not as something to fear, but as an ultimate motivator for living boldly and authentically. Welcome to the podcast. Karen, great to be here. So Karen, I, I just, I love talking about this, about just the inner work and mindset and just the I like to say, intangible things that make our life, our life, because my show typically, you know, we talk about money, but ultimately, the people who listen journeyers, I call them, want to reach financial independence. They want more autonomy. They want happiness, and they're using money, and they want to use money as a tool to get there. And I always say, that's great, and there's a lot of tangible things you need to do with money, but a lot of it, for me, while I'm on my journey, still stems from the inner work, the mindset, the habits and making a life happy and livable as you are, whether you're in debt or everything's not the way you want it. And so I thought that your topic and what you talk about would be perfect to share with my audience, just because I want people to like, learn how to be happy now and live their life without regrets today, without all the conditions. So I just want to basically give you the floor to talk about why this topic, especially with this latest book, is so important to share with people now,

Karen Salmansohn 3:20

sure, well, I I get into this in a lot of different ways that might be refreshing for you to hear, because it my book is about death. Actually, it's about the benefits of mortality awareness, what happens when we just wake up to the truth that our lives here are impermanent. And I believe that mortality awareness is not morbid. It's motivating because mortality awareness creates urgency, and urgency creates action. So in my book, I have people think about how they want to feel on their deathbed, and then reverse engineer what they have to do now to get to become aspirational deathbed, you, so to speak. And I actually talk about money in the book, because what I tell people is I mentioned some philosophies in there from Aristotle, who what I joke. I have a platonic crush on Aristotle. I love what he had to say. And he said that we should begin all projects with the ends in mind, everything from something small, like a bake sale to something large, like that gigantic project called your life. And he says that no matter who you are in this world, we all have the same end goal for our life, and that is to learn lessons that help us to grow into our highest potential self. And if you do that and have that focus, if that's your deathbed goal, focus, and you aim yourself there, then you will be what I jokingly call. Not good in deathbed. But he said, the reason why so many people are unhappy is they have the wrong end goal for their lives. They think it's to become the richest person on this planet, the person with the best designer clothes on this planet, the sexiest person on this planet, the person with the most YouTube likes, the most podcast followers on this planet, and he says that if you make that your end goal for life, then you're going to be mightily disappointed when you're on your deathbed. You're going to realize you chased the wrong rabbits. So that's like thing number one that I talk about in my book, but I talk about a lot of different things, but I'll start off there, and then I'll give you room to ask me questions. But I got more. I got more.

Jamila Souffrant 5:45

Yeah, no, that's a great start. I mean, I think thinking about mortality, and you talk about something called a near life experience, yes, yeah, and that people should live that. So what is a near life experience? And can you give us an example of how we should be thinking of that?

Karen Salmansohn 6:00

Sure. Well, I wrote the book for two reasons. One of them is more like quirky, and that's the near life experience. So I'll tell you that first, then I'll tell you the second reason. So in the very front of the book, I say that I did not write this book because I had a near death experience. I had a near life experience, and guys, if you never heard of that before. It's because I made it up. But even though I made up the term, I think a lot of people will relate to it. It's about where you're on autopilot, or you're on your phone so much that you're not fully in your life. You're near your life, your life adjacent. It's a near life experience. Or you're with like your loved ones, but your mind is kind of racing to some fear about the future or to some regret about the past. And again, you're not fully in your life, your life adjacent, or you keep putting things off till someday, someday I will, someday I will. So you're not in your present life. And then this brings me to the second reason why I wrote the book. I wrote the book after my dad died, and when he died, it was a wake up call that this death thing is real, like it's amazing how we're in so much death denial. We're built like that. There's something called Terror management, which is about the fact that we don't like to really accept that we are going to die one day, and when you have a very close loved one pass, it wakes you up to the truth of the impermanence of your life. And from that, it snaps you out of autopilot. It makes you realize, oh my gosh, I don't have like, endless tomorrows. I don't have, like, a surprise bonus pack of an extra 700 years stored in a drawer. You know, this is it? This is our life. We're here, then we're not. And it's up to us to make the here part as meaningful as possible.

Jamila Souffrant 7:48

How do you know if you are in that mode? Is it a feeling? Is it results in your life look a certain way? Because I often find, especially with just access to social media, that while I feel like I do a lot, I'm active, I think, in my life, in a lot of ways, that, you know, I find myself like what you just said, maybe scrolling, kind of dissociating a bit, not feeling super excited all the time about things, which I don't think we're supposed to feel excited all the time. But how do you know, if it's, you know, it's normal to kind of check out, sometimes it's fine, versus, wait a second, I'm not fully living the life I say I want to live. And how do you change that?

Karen Salmansohn 8:26

Okay, well, first of all, you sense it, because you feel like there's like, this low level hum of meh. You just feel like, is this all there is like, meh. And sometimes it's worse than meh. I mean, sometimes it's depression or anxiety or anger. You know, something is there that, and it's there persistently, and you realize I am not happy with my life, or repeated patterns of pain. Or you keep putting things off to someday because you think there's going to be a someday, and you're not doing what you have to do now. You don't have a feeling of passion and excitement for your life, and it's possible to have that if you know, we don't a lot of times we don't do things unless we have a deadline, and as soon as that deadline starts coming up, then we're like, Okay, gotta write that term paper. Well, death is the ultimate deadline, and is one that we can't beg our way out of like please. You know it's coming, whether you like it or not, and when you accept that, then you start to get braver. You start to want to live more authentically. You you start wanting to take more chances, because you realize your fear of failure looks like nothing compared to the fear of having regret if you don't take chances. And that's what mortality awareness does,

Jamila Souffrant 9:49

right, right for many on the journey which we all are, whether we know it or not, with our finances, and specifically financial independence, this idea. Idea that you never have to work again unless you want to. It's work is optional. And I know I started that journey because I wasn't happy with my current life or my current work situation. And I know I needed money to make make things work. And so I figured out how to manage my money. And so while I'm at a great place financially, I think for most people, like the unhappiness like I felt in the moment was because I didn't like my external like environment or pressures of what that was like, driving to work, going to work, and all those things. But even now, on the other side, where I'm not financially independent, but I have more flexibility and options, there's still, there's still things that come along with being an entrepreneur, or even if you have all the money in the world, you know, people are still not necessarily happy. And so I really urge people, and want people to find that sense of happiness, no matter where they are on the journey, and it not be just about like paying off debt or money. Like, how do you get that in your life? Today,

Karen Salmansohn 11:01

I actually write about this in the book. So first, I want to tell you a study, a research study, I think is so pertinent for everything that you're talking about. What does death and money? How do they coalesce? Well, there was a research study that they helped people to think about their future self and let them know that they have a future self, because all most of the time, we're just walking around thinking, This is me, and we don't really think that there's a future self out there that is counting on current us not to be idiots with our money, that our future self is depending on us to be smart about our lives and our money. So they did a research study where they took a group of people two different groups. One group, they used a face aging app with where they had them see what they looked like when they were like 97 years old, with the wrinkles and the great everything, the whole works. And then the other group, they didn't do that. And the group that faced their future selves, their like deathbed selves, and really became very aware there's this older them that's depending on them, wound up saving their money more. It was as if there was like some time machine that the future them was coming back, tapping young them on the shoulder and say, Hey, don't be a fool. Don't waste our money. So there's power in thinking about deathbed you and future you. So I wanted to get that out there, because I think that study is very relevant for you. Next there are the strategies to enjoy your life now, which I write about in the book, I have people write their eulogies. And I know a lot of people are like, Oh my God, that's like, kind of like creepy crawly. So to take the creepy crawly out of it, I in my book, I have a template with fill in the blanks of a template for a eulogy that you can use, like a mad libs kind of a thing. So it makes it easier, it makes it even fun. And I'm going to tell you and your listeners a little spoiler alert from the book, that a lot of these blanks have to do with core values. And then what I have people do is they look at current you versus aspirational eulogy you, and you think, okay, what are the habits that I have to do to become aspirational eulogy me? What are the bridge habits? And how do I join my life now? Well, this is how. So what I have people do is create what I call a to die list, which is different than a to do list. And I believe that to do lists have a fatal flaw. They're just about productivity, and you could do everything on your to do list and be miserable where you are now and have tons of regrets by the time they're on your deathbed. Because the goal of life is not to be super busy and productive. The goal of life is to live with meaning and love and joy, and we need that in our present lives. We need that, and we'll do better at our jobs and everything like that. So I've a range of exercises around this idea, and I say that people have to not only write their to do list, they have to write their to die list, which is sort of like a to do what matters most list. And what I have people do is you look at your eulogy, or you can look at your present life. If you don't want to write your eulogy and say, Who do I need to become to get everything I want in my life, or who do I need to become to and then you say, to be happier, to stop fighting with my partner, to have a deeper relationship with my son. Who do I need to become? To stop or start like, whatever is your goals. And then there's a core value at the answer, and the reason why core value. Are so important to changing your life. Is your identity, is your destiny. Who you think you are is what you wind up doing. Your identity is the puppet master for your habits. So right now, if you walk around thinking even something like, I am poor, you're going to do the habits of a poor person, or I am successful, you're going to do the habits of the successful person, or confident or strong or determined or organized or kind or loving, whatever it is. You will do those habits, and you're probably doing them now on an unintentional basis, where you're thinking like I am messy, and then you're going to be messy. So you have to be intentional about your core values. And then you create what's called an I am, what I called an I Am, and so I do statement. So for example, one of my top core values is loving, okay? And here's how you could use the to die list. So I have this very wonderful friend who I've known forever. I live in New York. She lives in Connecticut, and she was having a birthday party. And I don't drive anymore because I let my driver's license expire. Living in New York, it's so funny. There's like a Sex in the City episode about this, and I am so those women when it comes to my driver's license, at least. So I thought, Oh, well, I guess I can't go to Danielle's birthday party. It's too hard to get to Connecticut. And then I thought about my core value, because I value meaningful relationships, that's in my eulogy, because I've really thought hard about what I want my life to be about, and meaningful relationships are very big big on my eulogy. So I wrote I am loving, and so I find a way to get my tush to Connecticut right. So when you write your core value next to your habit, what happens is it reminds you of who you want to be, and it creates what's called cognitive dissonance if you don't do it like, Oh, my God, I'm not going to plan to go to Connecticut. Wait, I'm not loving. Like, it makes you think, Wait, I am loving. I will find a way. And it kind of is an accountability buddy to try to get you to do it. And so I recommend people create these identity based statements, and then you write it down each day, and you could think about them. You could vary what's on your to die list based on that, based on who you want to be, the kind of life you want to live. And that can help you to make sure you're happy in the now and also overcome some of your challenges. Money wise too. If there, you could apply the whole formula to how to get out of a bad money situation as well with identity based habits.

Jamila Souffrant 17:50

And do you have a recommended core values? I mean, we can give some examples too, like loving, like you just mentioned. But some of my core values are autonomy and freedom, all these things, right? So, like, what are some other examples? Just so people get the idea rolling, and because when you start to list them, and all of them are going to sound really good to me, right? So it's like, I can have, like, 1015, 20 values, but how do you select the core ones? And can they change? I know for my it changed for me over time. And how does that work? Yeah,

Karen Salmansohn 18:21

I think they should change over time. It's sort of like if you go to the gym and you only do the running machine. No, you want to do the running machine. You want to do some freeways, sit ups, push ups, you know? You want the whole full body workout. So you want the whole soul and character building workout, you know. So I do have, I think it's seven. Yeah, seven core values that I recommend. And I figured these out because I looked at the top Regrets of the Dying and I thought, Oh my gosh. How do I reverse engineer the top Regrets of the Dying so I don't make them my regrets, like, what did these people need to embrace core value wise, to like, slather themselves with regret resistant sealants so they don't get up. Get these same core values at the end of their lives so well, first, the problems of people that when they're on their deathbeds, the things that they realize that they have regrets about our I wish I hadn't worked so hard. I wish that I had been more intimate, vulnerable, higher communicators with my friends. I wish I'd been more myself. I wish I'd had some purpose or act of service in my life. These are sort of like the common denominator ones. So I looked at those, and these are the core values that you need. And by the way, I wanted my first one. My first core value is authentic. So you have to pick the core values that are true to you. So these are just sort of like the starter kit ones. But I want people. I loved autonomy. I love the ones that you that you said, but these are, if. You have, like, writer's block about what your core values are, or you just want to tickle your brain a little like, oh yeah, I could use those. Yeah. Oh, and they're in alphabetical order, so they're easy to remember. A is authentic, because a lot of people wish that they had lived truer to themselves. So B is brave. This one, oh my gosh. If you're stuck in your comfort zone, you're going to have a lot of regrets when you're on your deathbed, a lot of things that people are proud about in their lives or the times that they were brave. C is curious, and you need this one, because, as Aristotle said, the purpose of life is to learn lessons that help you to grow into your highest potential self, and if you're stuck in a pattern of pain, you have to get curious. Well, why am I doing this? Is there some sort of gain in my pain here? What did I learn in my childhood? How can I let go? Why did they act that way to me? You know, you need curiosity, and plus, curiosity gives you wonder and awe. So curiosity is big 1d is discerning, because, you know, people say life is short, but a lot of it is we don't have time to do things in our day. And we're, like, not prioritizing. We have a lot of crap and clutter in our lives. Like, I didn't have time to do that. It's sort of like the adult version of the dog ate my homework, you know, because if you really know what your priorities are, know what your core values are, you will get rid of the crap and clutter. So D is discerning, E is empathic love. So I put the word empathic in front of love for two reasons. One is I needed an E word because I was determined to get it into alphabetical order. But when I thought of it, I thought I love the idea of empathic love versus love, because I didn't want to just make it love and make people think it's like romantic or confuse it with like chemistry and everything. And empathic Love is the love where you really want to listen and understand, active listening and and trying to really understand the other person and try to to adjust your behavior for them. That's empathic love, and that's the best love. F is fun, and yes, that's a core value, because a top regret of the dying is I wish I hadn't worked so hard so you need balance in your life. You need fun, and it definitely just those are going to be the memories on on your deathbed as well. And then G is gratitude, because gratitude is a great antidote to anxiety and stress and all of that that helps you to move forward and appreciate where you are now, even if you are trying to improve your life in some way. So those are my, my favorite core values that I recommend as a startup kit.

Jamila Souffrant 22:44

Yeah. And you know what those have all in common is, depending on, if you want to make them like fun and expensive type of fun, it can be, but there's a lot of things you can figure out how it's not, you know, tied to money, like what you can do for free. It's like an inner work. It's that inner journey I talk about, also in my book, Your journey to financial freedom, where there's that inner job that needs to be done that really helps you become that the happy person overall, not necessarily every single minute of the day, but overall, where the balance is skewed more to like a fulfilled life.

Karen Salmansohn 23:17

Yeah. Happiness studies even say that money can't buy you happiness, dot, dot, dot, unless you use it to buy experiences. It's the experiences going on a vacation, because those are building memories and emotional connections with people having meaningful relationships and meaningful experience experiences. So if you're going to like splurge on something. It's best to splurge on something that gives you a like, a high return on your investment with the people that you love or like, something that grows you and stretches you, a vacation somewhere, something like that than just designer shoes.

Jamila Souffrant 23:59

Hey, journeyers, if you are loving this podcast, then you will love my book, Your journey to financial freedom, a step by step guide to achieving wealth and happiness. I wrote this book for you. This book is for you if you want a clear and enjoyable path to having more money options and a rich life, this book is for you. If you hate your commute and the fact that you need to seek approval or permission from a boss, I hated that when I worked. This book is for you. If you weren't born into wealth, you didn't marry rich or win the lottery, but you still want freedom. This book is for you. If you're at a crossroads, a major decision or event is imminent, maybe a career change, marriage, starting a family, pressures are reaching a tipping point, and the discomfort and the desire for more can no longer be ignored, and this book is for you. If you find yourself zoned out at meetings, looking out the window or daydreaming about the life you truly want. So go pick up your journey to financial freedom. Dot. Com, so I can show you how to map out how to get from where you are today to where you ultimately want to be. And enjoy the journey. While you're on the path, head over to your journey to financial freedom.com. To see where you can pick the book up. It's available on Amazon, bookshop.org, Barnes and Noble, your local bookstore everywhere. Go to your journey to financialfreedom.com to get the book. Now, I know, you know, we talked about thinking about death, and you know, having that hopefully be a motivating factor to getting things done, or at least stepping into the life we want to live. Is there something to be said for because when I think about how short life is or death, it actually, I mean, I get more, I don't want to say anxious, but I get, I do get this sense of, Oh, my God, what's the point? Right? Like, I think I love like my life is so full, you know, I have small kids, and so they keep us busy. And, you know, sometimes you even look back years, like pictures from two, three years ago. You realize how fleeting and fast things are then, you know, you look forward, I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is all going so fast. And sometimes I think similar to how people think about money, in some ways, where, like this YOLO, you only live once. You're gonna die anyway. You know, sometimes it's like, why not? Why not? Just like, live, not necessarily destructively, but not to be so responsible one and two. But what is the point of doing all the right things? Because none of this really matters. We're just like a blip in the universe. In

Karen Salmansohn 26:30

my book, I cover this. First of all, I have a whole chapter in the book about God's soul. Like, do you believe in the soul or the core self? Do you believe that this is our one shot. Do you believe that there's more shots at this? And I come down to I'll give you another spoiler alert. It almost doesn't matter if you believe in a soul and reincarnation, or if you believe this is our one shot, either way, what will bring you the deepest level of joy that's called fulfillment is doing things that help you to grow into your highest possible self. That actually, there are studies around this, and studies that say that being more working towards your ideal self. And in the book, I talk about an Aristotle philosophy, which is also a stoic philosophy of people love stoicism, and they're not as familiar with Aristotle, and that is, Aristotle said that the reason why a lot of people are unhappy is that they confuse pleasure for happiness. And pleasure is about hit and run joy, and it feels good in the moment. It's impulse directed, but it's more, what I call the enjoy now struggle more later option and happiness, which is in Aristotle's language, eudaemonia, is more the struggle. Now, enjoy more later option. And in fact, there's studies about people that are parents, which I'm a parent too, that we report having like, more stress and all of that, but we have like with that comes more fulfillment. And so a lot of the things that bring you long term joy, long term happiness, instead of the fleeting hedonia hedonism, it's the struggle a little now grow more later. And I think that people feel that life is just supposed to be or the secret of a great life is to just hang out in the den of pleasure all the time. But the true meaningful life is it's den of pleasure and laboratory for growth. You can't spend all your time here in the den of pleasure, you have to wander into the laboratory of growth and do the work, and that's where you're going to get the deepest fulfillment and the deepest meaning. And if people are feeling is that all there is That's because you don't have purpose in your life. And I believe the purpose of your life is to find and do the purpose in your life. And in fact, Carl Jung says something really interesting about this, which I'm going to share. I love this. He talks about how we all need to be happy. We all need a high level spiritual quest, purpose, something that drives us. And probably this podcast is a high level spiritual quest for you having purpose. And it could be kids, it could be anything, but he says, If you do not have a high level spiritual quest, you will develop a low level spiritual quest in the form of drama and conflict and addiction and all of these things where you have a driving force that's driving you towards something, but it's low level, and that's why a lot of people get stuck in the trauma and the conflict and all of that, because they don't have a high level spiritual quest. And in fact, one of the a great way to break free, or to start the break free process. Because sometimes it's not easy from a low level spiritual quest is to set your eyes on a higher level goal and get yourself excited about that, and that will help you to break free from that, and will make you feel like I'm here for a reason. Let's go. Let's make it 100 years. Only get 100 please. Can I get 200 you know? It will give you that sense of, I am so excited to be here. My life has meaning and purpose.

Jamila Souffrant 30:28

And what I suspect can be happening for a lot of people now is, if they don't have it, they don't know what their high level goal or quest is. Is like, how do I find that, you know? How do I know what I'm doing is that,

Karen Salmansohn 30:41

well, in my book, I'm sorry, because I write about this, this is I love talking about this too, as you can tell, because I'm just going on and on, because I love this whole topic. So in my book, I have prompts to help you to figure that out. But I also say that part of the problem is that in today's world, we're on our phone so much that we're not in touch with whatever you want to call it soul or core self, and we have to know who we are on the inside. So we need more time for contemplation. We need more quiet time. And I have a lot of prompts that help you to get in touch with that. And there we go again with our our core values, A is for authentic and B is for brave. This is how you can start to not only figure out what is your purpose, but also to make sure that you're doing it. I am authentic, and so I do painting because that's my authentic thing, or I am brave. And so I write comedy acts and do stand up comedy, whatever it is, you know, or I'm I am empathically loving. And so I give to charity. I get involved with a cause that's near and dear to me a lot of the time. The purpose for what people do is from their wound, they turn their pain into their purpose. And then that helps, because it loosens up your grip on bitterness and resentment, because you're getting something good out of it. You see the gift, you see the assignment in your pain, and you feel like you're helping others, and so it helps to make your life feel like it's making sense. That

Jamila Souffrant 32:25

makes sense. I thought you were actually going to say when you said that, while it's great if you can turn pain into purpose and use that, as you know, to help others and to heal yourself, that using that, or holding on to that, or doing that too much is actually maybe where you're not letting go, right? Or I can see how that can be destructive for someone, or they're focused on instead of like the happiness, like they're trying to fix something that they can't control,

Karen Salmansohn 32:57

if they're using it to heal others. But also you should know, Aristotle was the guy who coined the idea of everything in moderation, and He even talks about wealth that way. He says wealth is important to be in his day. Even said to be able to do certain things, but everything in moderation, everything in moderation. He even thought kindness should be in moderation, because you don't want to be a doormat, you know, so everything, and that includes even how much focus you give to turning your your pain into purpose. You know, you want to have a balanced life. Yeah,

Jamila Souffrant 33:38

one thing you discuss in your work is the power or the role of fear and pushing people. And I mean, we talked about a little bit earlier, like the fear of not accomplishing or living up to your true self, and that awareness causes action. And it's funny, because I went to the doctor the other day, and I was getting a shot. And when I was younger, I was not afraid of shots. I would look at the needle like I did not care, and I found myself, like, winching and being afraid of this shot. And so the doctor, she's very wise doctor, and we were kind of talking a little bit, and I was saying, you know, I was never afraid of shots before. And now, like, look at me, and she we're talking about, as you grow older and age, how sometimes your experience brings along some fear, because you kind of, know, you've been there and you've kind of had, like, life's challenges, or whatever that is, versus when you're younger, you're just more bold with things. And I thought about all the things that I used to not be afraid of, that I'm more afraid of now as I'm getting older. And so I wonder if you have any insight on that, because that, I think, is huge for people in terms of making bold decisions with their career their lives, you know, if they can do that?

Speaker 2 34:43

Yes. So here I go again. In my book, I write about what can happen as you get older, you might develop what I call a negative, dominant belief based on a challenge, even a. I mean, in in you have a reason for it. I don't diminish that it's there for a good reason. But after all, it's not productive. It kept you safe at one point. So I tell a story about how I was out to dinner with my family, and I went to the restroom. I was I was in the stall, and I looked over by the toilet paper, and somebody had written, Lynn plus men who don't love her. And I looked at that, and I thought, oh my gosh, this woman has a negative dominant belief. And I almost was gonna write underneath it, Lynn plus men who she keeps choosing because she has a negative dominant belief that she hasn't really repaired. And been like, you know, I'm joking, but, and I thought so many of us have this, like we're afraid to do something, and we associate it's a trigger. We have all of this negative evidence collecting. We become negative evidence. This always happens to me. I can never that's when you know you have a negative, dominant belief. And in fact, because I coach people, if somebody comes to me and they're feeling an overwhelming sense of depression or anger or, you know, whatever it is, anxiety, I kind of hunt for their always and never, a permanent and pervasive belief that they have. So I help them to track that down and figure out how that is, and then work like, almost like a lawyer on the stand to dispute their fear and to dispute that this always or never, because it's very rare. There's an always or never. I never say there's never an always or never, because then I'm using the word never, but it's very rare and and then one of my favorite tool that I have in the book is I have people do a life review, and I have different things for life reviews, but one of my favorites is chronological mapping, okay, and this is when you take this long piece of butcher paper that just kind of rolls out. But if you don't have butcher paper, you could tape eight and a half by 11, you know, together, then you draw this really long line across it, and this is going to be your life. And then you start putting in little dots that represent, like inciting incidents, like important parts of your life, first fell in love, first had heart trampled on. First job, first job loss, first, you know, $10,000 when I lost 50,000 like you write it all down, and then you look at it, and then you realize, because you're not done your life yet, God willing, you know when you're doing this, there's gonna still be more line going. And the first thing that happens when you visually see that, because people that are have had a very traumatic experience, they start to feel like this has overwhelmed their life. And I believe nothing is everything. The part cannot be greater than the whole. And people think this is who my life, what my life is when my father left me, or when I and these are tragedies, and these are dramas, even, you know, when I miscarried, you know, but you don't, and sort of maybe what you're saying if your pain, turn your pain into purpose, if you're too much in that mindset of, I am my miscarriage, I am my father, leaving me. No, you have to see your chronological mapping to see that this is just part of it. And then you start to look for the pattern and the lessons Aristotle, the purpose of your life is to learn the lessons that help you to grow into your highest possible self. And you see, how did this help me to zigzag here? How was this a gift? How was it an assignment? And then you start to see that there's more runway that you have left. That's why some people, when they hear I wrote a book about death they think I'm a death doula, you know, an end of life doula, I'm not an end of life doula, I'm a middle of life doula, I'm a beginning of life doula, while there's still runway left to make the changes you need to make, you can still make it now. And this is what the chronological mapping helps you to see the patterns and what you're supposed to learn and then get excited about the rest of that runway.

Jamila Souffrant 39:05

Yeah, actually, that's such a great exercise, because not only you know, you can tell people to think about your past experiences and how it helped you today, but I think, really, you know, sit down, get it out, write it down, and try, you know, not only the negative things, but the positive. You know, as best as you can, objectively look at those incidents and see, like, how does it lead you here? Right? Like, it all those things created you to be here today. And so I love that the idea is looking for is that you hopefully have more time to do the things you want to do, or to change or to evolve

Karen Salmansohn 39:35

exactly. I have another tool that people tend to really enjoy, because it's visual. I think visual tools really help a lot, because a lot of this talk about death feels so abstract, and I wrote about this on substack. I have a column there that I call I'm the stand up philosopher, because I like talking about philosophy, but with humor, I'm supposedly funny unless you talk to my 14 year old son, who. Doesn't think I'm funny at all. And then I tell him, Jon Stewart thought I was funny because I got a blurb from Jon Stewart. And he says, who I'm like, okay, exactly. You don't know who Jon Stewart is. So anyway, I digress. So this is what I call my mortality marble monthly jar. Okay, so a couple of years ago, I did the math and I added up how many months I have left to live if I live to 100 I'm optimistic. My son actually asked me to live to 200 but I bargained him down to 100 and he accepted my counter offer. So and I had, I think I forgot, because this is a couple years ago. I think I had, like, 478 months left to live. And when you say that out loud, it's like it's a wake up. Let me tell you, Oh, it doesn't sound like much. You know, that's how many, what calories there are in a muffin. I don't even think a big muffin. So I bought the marbles, and I put it in this marble jar, and then I bought an empty jar to sit next to it, and I put it, I have it in my kitchen, actually. And every month I take out a marble and I hold it up. It's a piece of my life. It represents a piece of my life. And I look at it and I think, how did I spend this piece of my life. What did I do last month? I do it in the morning over coffee, and then I journal about it. Now, the first time you do it, you're probably going to be, like, a little disappointed in yourself, like, what did I do this month? I don't think I did much of anything right. And then you, like, plunk it in the jar. But now you know, the next month, the first of that next month, you're going to have to be accountable for how you spent that little piece of your life, how you're going to start to live a little differently, right? So you're going to look at the chair and go, well, then you're even going to get smart with yourself and go, Oh, what am I going to plan ahead for my my goals for next month? It's going to happen automatically, whether you like it or not, because you know you have to report to yourself. So you start to think, Oh, I know I'm going to make this the month that I blah, blah, blah, you know, and you make up something like that, and knowing that you're going to have to remove that marble keeps you very accountable to embracing your core values, to like having meaningful relationships and meaningful experiences, all of that.

Jamila Souffrant 42:17

Part of me really likes and loves that. And the part of me is like, oh my gosh, I feel like I'd be sad watching it go away each one you

Karen Salmansohn 42:27

then almost have a memory jar in the other jar, because you're like, oh, there was the month that I went to, you know, Paris with my partner. Or there was the month that, whatever it is, and you start to look at it differently. The other thing that happens, another side effect, is, I have my jars in my kitchen, and it makes me aware. Oh my gosh, I want to live as long as possible. I better not eat that ice cream like it actually helps,

Jamila Souffrant 42:54

so you could take better care of yourself. No, that that makes sense. I mean, I just think so much of us are on these journeys. It's all they're all different. We're all different. So we're gonna, even if we experience the same thing, it's gonna feel different. We're gonna take away different things from it. And ultimately, fulfillment seems to be what we should be striving for, and not necessarily, I was gonna say, growth, but not in a productive way. It's not like you need to be productive and do all the things. Because a lot of things that we're talking about is more like, you don't have to fill your jar or take the say you accomplish something by doing by working harder, by, you know, getting that raise. I mean, that'd be great. But I think what we're talking about more is, how do you you know, is this more quality time? Is it finding a hobby that you really enjoy to do what lights you up. And I think that's the kind of stuff that creates that life we want get

Karen Salmansohn 43:45

yourself excited about what you're gonna do with your marbles. So when you take the mountain, you look at it, you're like, Yes, I did that.

Jamila Souffrant 43:53

I love that. Okay, Karen, please tell everyone the name of your book again and where they can get it and then where they can find more about your work and the things that you do.

Karen Salmansohn 44:02

My book is called your to die for life, how to maximize joy and minimize regret before your time runs out. So your to die for life. And I have a website called your to die for life.com, and my name is Karen salmonson, and everybody mangles my last name, and they're always going, saminson. Saminson, I'm always saying, Not salmon, not salmon. So I have a main website with all my other books and everything that I do called not salmon.com like not the fish.com so it's easy to remember. And then my Instagram is not salmon. My Facebook is not salmon, even my sub stack, the URL is sub stack.com/not salmon. So pretty much everything not salmon. And then my book is sold. Everywhere books are sold.

Jamila Souffrant 44:45

Well, we will link all of that in the episode show notes so people can get the book and follow up with you. But this was so insightful and great. So thank you again for coming on the show.

Karen Salmansohn 44:55

Oh, thank you. This was fun to talk about with you. Thank you for having me here.

Jamila Souffrant 44:58

Don't forget. You can get the episode show notes for this episode by going to journey to launch.com or click the description of wherever you're listening to this. And you can still grab your jumpstart guide for free to help you on your journey to financial freedom by going to journey to launch.com/jump start. If you want to support me and the podcast and love the free content and information that you get here, here are four ways that you can support me in the show. One, make sure you're subscribed to the podcast wherever you listen, whether that's Apple podcasts, that purple app on your phone, your Android device, YouTube, Spotify, wherever it is that you happen to listen, just subscribe so you are not missing an episode. And if you're happening to listen to this in Apple podcasts, rate review and subscribe there. I appreciate and read every single review. Number two, follow me on my social media accounts. I'm at journey to launch on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and I love, love, love interacting with journeyers. There three, support and check out the sponsors of this show. If you hear something that interests you, sponsors are the main ways we keep the podcast lights on here, so show them some love for supporting your girl four. And last but not least, share this episode, this podcast, with a friend or family member or co worker so that we can spread the message of Journey to launch. All right, that's it until next week, keep on journeying. Journeyers. You.

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