Episode Transcript
Hi, everyone. Welcome to how to live a podcast that explores ways to live a good life. I'm your host, Sharad Lal. This is episode 50. And guess what? Today we are celebrating a monumental milestone episode 50. That's right. We've hit the big Five-O and to mark this special occasion, we've got a treat in store for you. We're going to deep dive into the very question that kick-started this podcast journey. How do we live? What's the key to living a good meaningful life. To tackle this age, old question. We've gathered insights from the various incredible guests who've appeared on the podcast.
You might recall, we asked many of them. At the end of your life, how would you know you've lived a good life? It's a question that cuts through all the noise and zeroes in on what truly matters. Their answers. Well, they're as diverse as life itself. Many emphasized the importance of people. Nurturing meaningful relationships, cherishing quality time with loved ones. Even in the realm of work, some talk about being exceptional leaders and eating others in their personal growth. Then there are others who find joy in the very act of living Spreading smiles, practicing kindness, and ensuring the never harm others along the way. And let's not forget the change-makers. Those who strive to leave an indelible mark on the world.
The aspire to make the world a slightly better place through their actions, aiming to influence and inspire others positively.
Then there's also this aspect of regret. A topic we delved into earlier. Many seek to have no regrets in their life. Interestingly, most regrets don't stem from actions we took and later regretted. Regrets typically are things we never did. The untapped potential. The dreams left unexplored. So join us as we listen to these remarkable people, Share their wisdom and experiences in their own authentic voices. We've arranged their insights in chronological order, just as they appeared on the podcast.
Before we dive into this episode, I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude for your unfavorable support. Thanks for your love and encouragement. Through this we've reached the incredible milestone of 50 episodes. We've hit number three in Singapore in the business category. Reach the ears of listeners in over 120 countries And proudly stand in the top 5% worldwide None of this would be possible without you. And we are deeply grateful Your personal messages and words of encouragement keep us going and we promise to keep crafting meaningful content that you will find useful Now without further ado let's dive into this inspiring episode
Sharad: at the end of your life, how would you know you've lived a good life
Abhinav: I think it's always be related with people, have you been good parent and therefore, have you, help your children become the best version of themselves and are they doing good in society?
Have you been a good boss and a leader and people from, when you talk about KPI, low leaders, I think the two foremost KPIs to leader should be one. How many other leaders have they created? And second, how much of that talent have they kept inside in their organizations? The retention of that talent.
I think people were towards the end of the career that they're reflecting on it. If they go back and see the people that grew up there who worked under them and who they're mentored and all of that, how well are they doing in their lives? And have you been an instrumental force in helping them become better with themselves?
Zach: I know that at the end of the day, I'm going to have regrets and if my regrets are small and not monumental I know I've had a good life. if I have any really big regrets of things I didn't do or things I didn't take care of or love people in a certain way.
I think that's where I'm going to have a problem. I want to have small regrets, not a lot of big regrets.
Jeremy: It's funny, mine also circles around regret, and I think that's what most of us try and avoid for the most part in our lives. And the thing I tell my kids all the time is you're only going to regret the things that you didn't. Way more than the things that you did, you might do something and get hurt, but you'll always know that you chose to try and you got hurt instead of spending the next, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years.
Wondering what if I'd done that thing? I see it all the time. I saw it today. My kids were doing this program at school where they were kayaking and it was the one kid that. To not flip upside down in his kayak to learn how to get out of it in case that ever happened on accident, the entire class did it, but this one kid didn't and I saw him and I went, that was me when I was a kid, I was afraid and I let fear prevent me from being a part of the tribe from being a part of a game that had the shared experience.
And I felt bad for that kid because for 20 years, that kid is going to now carry that memory of the time that he said no, that he was too afraid. And he gave in to the. I don't ever want to do that again, there are things that I know that I don't need to do, and I'm okay with saying no to them, but if there's something that is safe, that will be fun.
That will be a memory that I will cherish rather than one that I'll work. Having taken a part of a I'm saying yes every time, because I don't want at the end of my life to be going, ah, man, I wish I'd done that one experience.
Steph: Oh, what a great question. The The thing that I'm searching for most in my life. And that keeps me battling through the darkness is finding peace. It's not even happiness. It's just having this feeling of peace. And if I can get to the end of my life and I found. And I'm just in a place where I'm more in the light than the dark. And I really just am satisfied with my life and with my family and I don't torture myself, I would say that's a pretty good life.
So for me, yeah, at the end of my life I hope I've found peace in being able to deeply enjoy that for at least a few decades. 'cause the first few were very painful.
Simone: Oh, I look at it like when I was with my mom at the nursing home for those one and a half years, it's about the number of visitors that are coming to see me. It's who at who in those winter years is going to be there. And I think that's how, you sew the seeds of connection. I'm not a materialistic person at all.
So a lot of the projects I do are heart driven, right? They're not being money makers. And so when I and I, and that. I was raised, but it's also, I've become more so now, because I spent so much time in my late twenties, early thirties, hanging around in a nursing home when no one else my age was hanging around in a nursing home because my mom had become paralyzed.
And so I can tell you for sure, not one of those people. is talking about the job. They had the car, they owned the money. They made. Every one of those elderly people is praying and wishing from the moment they get up in the morning that somebody they loved and invested in is gonna visit. And I wanna know when it comes to my time that there's a line waiting to come and see me.
Papa CJ: When I interview people, I ask them almost an identical. Except my question is how would you like to be remembered? Which is pretty much the same thing. And my answer to that question is with a smile. If, when people think of me, it brings a smile to their face. That's good enough for me.
Jem: Look into the eyes of those that I love. That's how I'll know, and that could be today, we're all going to die and we don't know when I think that's amazing. And that informs us on how we can live. Given that I don't know when I'm going to die and, look, there's been lots of research done around the quality of our life and evidence shows that the quality of our life is directly correlated to the quality of our relationships. So when I look into the eyes of my partner, my woman, or when I look into the eyes of my children or my mother, or my brother or sister, or close friends in a moment of.
Quiet when we're not speaking or talking when we're just present and looking into each other's eyes that tells me how good my life is.
Toko-pa: Oh.
I think my greatest aspiration is to be kind. It always was. I remember meeting something, somebody when I was very small, who I found to be kind, and I thought that's what I wanna be when I grow up. I want to be kind.
Susie: maybe I'll have hit 150 countries.
Sharad: on your way there on your
way
Susie: On my way there on my way there. And, hopefully I know I didn't do anything bad to anyone that that has hurt them. I would like to think that, I'm very I'm very down to earth about these things when you're gone and you've forgotten in a hundred years. So I don't I, I used to always be asked about what legacy do you want to leave?
And I, it used to make me laugh and maybe it's an English thing, but, I would say. Most of us will never leave any legacy because within a hundred years of death, no one will be alive. That remembers us. But if I was William Shakespeare or someone, yes, he left a legacy, but the most, and that's who cares.
Doesn't really. So I can't get too excited about these things. That's just me personally.
Sarah: If I've loved and been loved. Think that's. How I all know I've lived a good life. If I've given lots of love to the people in my life. If I've given lots of love to any of the projects I've worked on, if I've received love in return and. It really comes down to family. Now for me, like family's the number one thing, and to be surrounded by my family and close friends and have them in my life and have my children in my life, then I think that's to me, everything now.
So that would be a good life.
Rameez: That's a question I've recently thought about a lot, and I don't know what a good answer is yet, and I'm in the journey, but I, the one, I have my placeholder, and I'm sure it'll evolve as I think just good friends and people that love you and that's it.
Jim Lafferty: I would be able to look out in the world, look at my children, look at my family, look at the people I've interacted with and say, I left them in a better place than if they hadn't ever had me. And that comes back to my original mission. I just wanna make the world a little bit better. That's all.
And that's my life mission. And that can be done by coaching athletes. That can be done by working in a company and giving back through csr. It can. There's some, there's a lot of ways to fulfill that mission. And people ask me sometimes you're, you have these diverse things like CEO and coaching athletes and writing newspaper columns, right?
How does that all fit together? And I say it's easy. It's all about improving the world just a little bit more. If people read my column and they are impacted, then they like my writing, then I've helped them. If I've coached them and they're better, I've helped them. If my children are productive members of society and improving society and doing things in the world, then I raised them and I helped it.
That's all. That's the whole mission.
Dean Tong: I did ask myself that question. It is really looking back and. knowing the lives that you have touched along the way. And hopefully then, the people that have positively influenced mourned, outweighed the people that I may have negatively touch upon. Or sometimes you do not know, you, you may have actually created some bad camera And to have also. Appreciated. your mind, your body during this brief period that you have on earth and you have not actually wasted them. I think that will be a life live without regrets.
Travis Eliot: It would be a question of did I live well and did I love well? And if the question was yes to both of those, I would have to say mission accomplished.
Michaela Haas: That is a really good question. I think I would've liked to make a difference in people's lives. my. Main way of communicating is through writing. what makes me happiest is to receive letters from people who've read my books or listened to a podcast and said, you know what? That really helped me.
I had an insight or I saw something that I didn't see before. I think that's really my main motivation. Where I wrote Bouncing Forward, was that hopefully I could, Support other people going through rough times. if people, would say at the end of my life that I help them in some small way that when I don't write books, I am a reporter.
I do solutions journalism, which means rather than just writing about problems, I write about effective reproducible solutions. And that's another way that gives my life meaning if I help a few people, that would be a good then I would say I, I have lived a good life.
William Irvine: I already know I'm living a good life. So I have lived a very full life. I've lived a life where I've had a lot of good emotions.
I think I've done some good for other people. I'm hoping that the stuff I do, stoicism has done that.
I regard myself as in descending order of importance as a husband, a father, and a teacher. And I've I've enjoyed all of those things. And so if I so another thing, stoics we contemplate death. It's a very important part realization that your days are numbered. And that can sound like a terribly negative thing, but it can also make your life fulfilling. If I were to go now I would say, it'd be nice to stick around for tomorrow, but my work here is is not quite done, but but in a state where I, feel good about it, I'm not sure if I've answered your question, but it's a complex question and
Sharad Lal: You certainly
William Irvine: yeah.
And so I don't have a lot of regrets. I don't have a lot of, I wish I would've cuz I, I did whatever it was.
Anand Mehrotra: if I would have just the way I am now
with this sense of peace, sense of I feel ready. I look forward to it. I've thought about it many times in that sense that I'm very excited for that moment and I'm, I love, I don't want people to misunderstand that somehow I'm looking, I love living and I love being here and I love this life and what I get to do and what all has been given to me and these amazing people I get to be with this phenomenal life.
But the life and death for me are together, and you can only die the way you live. And so when you are living in that sense, then death is only a culmination of that. I think it's a blossoming of your life. Ultimately, we are all heading in that direction. And so if I can continue the way I am and keep leaning, then death can only be like
this.
And so I'm excited for it because I love life. So I have to love death then, but it's still death
is so unique.
Nikki Muller: think it is the diversity in those scenes. If we're using the movie term. The fact that they're all so different. And you know what it is if I look back on my life and it's one heck of an indie film,
One heck of an indie film in different languages and different, in different scenarios and it's, they're completely juxtaposed and you just don't, it's confusing and beautiful at the same time, then that's, that's the only life I know.
I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I enjoyed putting it together.
love reliving the wisdom that so many of these smart people had to offer. He has an action step. All of us could consider. Let's try answering the same question. We've asked everyone else. You can do this with me now or do it later when you have 10, 15 minutes, it doesn't need to be too long. Let's take a few deep breaths.
Center ourselves and relax.
And as we settled down, That's ask ourselves.
At the end of my life. How would, I know I've lived a good life.
Let's see what emerges. You don't need to control or judge anything. We just see what it is.
What does this tell you about yourself?
What can you do differently?
All the very best. That's it for today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. We'll be back with another episode two weeks from now on September 26th. We're joined by a man who shifted parts in his life to live a more meaningful life We'll be joined us for that Did next time have a wonderful day ahead Bye. Bye.
Hi, everyone. Welcome to how to live a podcast that explores ways to live a good life. I'm your host, Sharad Lal. This is episode 50. And guess what? Today we are celebrating a monumental milestone episode 50. That's right. We've hit the big Five-O and to mark this special occasion, we've got a treat in store for you. We're going to deep dive into the very question that kick-started this podcast journey. How do we live? What's the key to living a good meaningful life. To tackle this age, old question. We've gathered insights from the various incredible guests who've appeared on the podcast.
You might recall, we asked many of them. At the end of your life, how would you know you've lived a good life? It's a question that cuts through all the noise and zeroes in on what truly matters. Their answers. Well, they're as diverse as life itself. Many emphasized the importance of people. Nurturing meaningful relationships, cherishing quality time with loved ones. Even in the realm of work, some talk about being exceptional leaders and eating others in their personal growth. Then there are others who find joy in the very act of living Spreading smiles, practicing kindness, and ensuring the never harm others along the way. And let's not forget the change-makers. Those who strive to leave an indelible mark on the world.
The aspire to make the world a slightly better place through their actions, aiming to influence and inspire others positively.
Then there's also this aspect of regret. A topic we delved into earlier. Many seek to have no regrets in their life. Interestingly, most regrets don't stem from actions we took and later regretted. Regrets typically are things we never did. The untapped potential. The dreams left unexplored. So join us as we listen to these remarkable people, Share their wisdom and experiences in their own authentic voices. We've arranged their insights in chronological order, just as they appeared on the podcast.
Before we dive into this episode, I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude for your unfavorable support. Thanks for your love and encouragement. Through this we've reached the incredible milestone of 50 episodes. We've hit number three in Singapore in the business category. Reach the ears of listeners in over 120 countries And proudly stand in the top 5% worldwide None of this would be possible without you. And we are deeply grateful Your personal messages and words of encouragement keep us going and we promise to keep crafting meaningful content that you will find useful Now without further ado let's dive into this inspiring episode
Sharad: at the end of your life, how would you know you've lived a good life
Abhinav: I think it's always be related with people, have you been good parent and therefore, have you, help your children become the best version of themselves and are they doing good in society?
Have you been a good boss and a leader and people from, when you talk about KPI, low leaders, I think the two foremost KPIs to leader should be one. How many other leaders have they created? And second, how much of that talent have they kept inside in their organizations? The retention of that talent.
I think people were towards the end of the career that they're reflecting on it. If they go back and see the people that grew up there who worked under them and who they're mentored and all of that, how well are they doing in their lives? And have you been an instrumental force in helping them become better with themselves?
Zach: I know that at the end of the day, I'm going to have regrets and if my regrets are small and not monumental I know I've had a good life. if I have any really big regrets of things I didn't do or things I didn't take care of or love people in a certain way.
I think that's where I'm going to have a problem. I want to have small regrets, not a lot of big regrets.
Jeremy: It's funny, mine also circles around regret, and I think that's what most of us try and avoid for the most part in our lives. And the thing I tell my kids all the time is you're only going to regret the things that you didn't. Way more than the things that you did, you might do something and get hurt, but you'll always know that you chose to try and you got hurt instead of spending the next, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years.
Wondering what if I'd done that thing? I see it all the time. I saw it today. My kids were doing this program at school where they were kayaking and it was the one kid that. To not flip upside down in his kayak to learn how to get out of it in case that ever happened on accident, the entire class did it, but this one kid didn't and I saw him and I went, that was me when I was a kid, I was afraid and I let fear prevent me from being a part of the tribe from being a part of a game that had the shared experience.
And I felt bad for that kid because for 20 years, that kid is going to now carry that memory of the time that he said no, that he was too afraid. And he gave in to the. I don't ever want to do that again, there are things that I know that I don't need to do, and I'm okay with saying no to them, but if there's something that is safe, that will be fun.
That will be a memory that I will cherish rather than one that I'll work. Having taken a part of a I'm saying yes every time, because I don't want at the end of my life to be going, ah, man, I wish I'd done that one experience.
Steph: Oh, what a great question. The The thing that I'm searching for most in my life. And that keeps me battling through the darkness is finding peace. It's not even happiness. It's just having this feeling of peace. And if I can get to the end of my life and I found. And I'm just in a place where I'm more in the light than the dark. And I really just am satisfied with my life and with my family and I don't torture myself, I would say that's a pretty good life.
So for me, yeah, at the end of my life I hope I've found peace in being able to deeply enjoy that for at least a few decades. 'cause the first few were very painful.
Simone: Oh, I look at it like when I was with my mom at the nursing home for those one and a half years, it's about the number of visitors that are coming to see me. It's who at who in those winter years is going to be there. And I think that's how, you sew the seeds of connection. I'm not a materialistic person at all.
So a lot of the projects I do are heart driven, right? They're not being money makers. And so when I and I, and that. I was raised, but it's also, I've become more so now, because I spent so much time in my late twenties, early thirties, hanging around in a nursing home when no one else my age was hanging around in a nursing home because my mom had become paralyzed.
And so I can tell you for sure, not one of those people. is talking about the job. They had the car, they owned the money. They made. Every one of those elderly people is praying and wishing from the moment they get up in the morning that somebody they loved and invested in is gonna visit. And I wanna know when it comes to my time that there's a line waiting to come and see me.
Papa CJ: When I interview people, I ask them almost an identical. Except my question is how would you like to be remembered? Which is pretty much the same thing. And my answer to that question is with a smile. If, when people think of me, it brings a smile to their face. That's good enough for me.
Jem: Look into the eyes of those that I love. That's how I'll know, and that could be today, we're all going to die and we don't know when I think that's amazing. And that informs us on how we can live. Given that I don't know when I'm going to die and, look, there's been lots of research done around the quality of our life and evidence shows that the quality of our life is directly correlated to the quality of our relationships. So when I look into the eyes of my partner, my woman, or when I look into the eyes of my children or my mother, or my brother or sister, or close friends in a moment of.
Quiet when we're not speaking or talking when we're just present and looking into each other's eyes that tells me how good my life is.
Toko-pa: Oh.
I think my greatest aspiration is to be kind. It always was. I remember meeting something, somebody when I was very small, who I found to be kind, and I thought that's what I wanna be when I grow up. I want to be kind.
Susie: maybe I'll have hit 150 countries.
Sharad: on your way there on your
way
Susie: On my way there on my way there. And, hopefully I know I didn't do anything bad to anyone that that has hurt them. I would like to think that, I'm very I'm very down to earth about these things when you're gone and you've forgotten in a hundred years. So I don't I, I used to always be asked about what legacy do you want to leave?
And I, it used to make me laugh and maybe it's an English thing, but, I would say. Most of us will never leave any legacy because within a hundred years of death, no one will be alive. That remembers us. But if I was William Shakespeare or someone, yes, he left a legacy, but the most, and that's who cares.
Doesn't really. So I can't get too excited about these things. That's just me personally.
Sarah: If I've loved and been loved. Think that's. How I all know I've lived a good life. If I've given lots of love to the people in my life. If I've given lots of love to any of the projects I've worked on, if I've received love in return and. It really comes down to family. Now for me, like family's the number one thing, and to be surrounded by my family and close friends and have them in my life and have my children in my life, then I think that's to me, everything now.
So that would be a good life.
Rameez: That's a question I've recently thought about a lot, and I don't know what a good answer is yet, and I'm in the journey, but I, the one, I have my placeholder, and I'm sure it'll evolve as I think just good friends and people that love you and that's it.
Jim Lafferty: I would be able to look out in the world, look at my children, look at my family, look at the people I've interacted with and say, I left them in a better place than if they hadn't ever had me. And that comes back to my original mission. I just wanna make the world a little bit better. That's all.
And that's my life mission. And that can be done by coaching athletes. That can be done by working in a company and giving back through csr. It can. There's some, there's a lot of ways to fulfill that mission. And people ask me sometimes you're, you have these diverse things like CEO and coaching athletes and writing newspaper columns, right?
How does that all fit together? And I say it's easy. It's all about improving the world just a little bit more. If people read my column and they are impacted, then they like my writing, then I've helped them. If I've coached them and they're better, I've helped them. If my children are productive members of society and improving society and doing things in the world, then I raised them and I helped it.
That's all. That's the whole mission.
Dean Tong: I did ask myself that question. It is really looking back and. knowing the lives that you have touched along the way. And hopefully then, the people that have positively influenced mourned, outweighed the people that I may have negatively touch upon. Or sometimes you do not know, you, you may have actually created some bad camera And to have also. Appreciated. your mind, your body during this brief period that you have on earth and you have not actually wasted them. I think that will be a life live without regrets.
Travis Eliot: It would be a question of did I live well and did I love well? And if the question was yes to both of those, I would have to say mission accomplished.
Michaela Haas: That is a really good question. I think I would've liked to make a difference in people's lives. my. Main way of communicating is through writing. what makes me happiest is to receive letters from people who've read my books or listened to a podcast and said, you know what? That really helped me.
I had an insight or I saw something that I didn't see before. I think that's really my main motivation. Where I wrote Bouncing Forward, was that hopefully I could, Support other people going through rough times. if people, would say at the end of my life that I help them in some small way that when I don't write books, I am a reporter.
I do solutions journalism, which means rather than just writing about problems, I write about effective reproducible solutions. And that's another way that gives my life meaning if I help a few people, that would be a good then I would say I, I have lived a good life.
William Irvine: I already know I'm living a good life. So I have lived a very full life. I've lived a life where I've had a lot of good emotions.
I think I've done some good for other people. I'm hoping that the stuff I do, stoicism has done that.
I regard myself as in descending order of importance as a husband, a father, and a teacher. And I've I've enjoyed all of those things. And so if I so another thing, stoics we contemplate death. It's a very important part realization that your days are numbered. And that can sound like a terribly negative thing, but it can also make your life fulfilling. If I were to go now I would say, it'd be nice to stick around for tomorrow, but my work here is is not quite done, but but in a state where I, feel good about it, I'm not sure if I've answered your question, but it's a complex question and
Sharad Lal: You certainly
William Irvine: yeah.
And so I don't have a lot of regrets. I don't have a lot of, I wish I would've cuz I, I did whatever it was.
Anand Mehrotra: if I would have just the way I am now
with this sense of peace, sense of I feel ready. I look forward to it. I've thought about it many times in that sense that I'm very excited for that moment and I'm, I love, I don't want people to misunderstand that somehow I'm looking, I love living and I love being here and I love this life and what I get to do and what all has been given to me and these amazing people I get to be with this phenomenal life.
But the life and death for me are together, and you can only die the way you live. And so when you are living in that sense, then death is only a culmination of that. I think it's a blossoming of your life. Ultimately, we are all heading in that direction. And so if I can continue the way I am and keep leaning, then death can only be like
this.
And so I'm excited for it because I love life. So I have to love death then, but it's still death
is so unique.
Nikki Muller: think it is the diversity in those scenes. If we're using the movie term. The fact that they're all so different. And you know what it is if I look back on my life and it's one heck of an indie film,
One heck of an indie film in different languages and different, in different scenarios and it's, they're completely juxtaposed and you just don't, it's confusing and beautiful at the same time, then that's, that's the only life I know.
I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I enjoyed putting it together.
love reliving the wisdom that so many of these smart people had to offer. He has an action step. All of us could consider. Let's try answering the same question. We've asked everyone else. You can do this with me now or do it later when you have 10, 15 minutes, it doesn't need to be too long. Let's take a few deep breaths.
Center ourselves and relax.
And as we settled down, That's ask ourselves.
At the end of my life. How would, I know I've lived a good life.
Let's see what emerges. You don't need to control or judge anything. We just see what it is.
What does this tell you about yourself?
What can you do differently?
All the very best. That's it for today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. We'll be back with another episode two weeks from now on September 26th. We're joined by a man who shifted parts in his life to live a more meaningful life We'll be joined us for that Did next time have a wonderful day ahead Bye. Bye.