5 Things People Regret

Watch the episode here:

• Regret and expectations
• Live true to yourself
• Be kind to your future self
• With good intentions, it will work out
• When you don’t express your emotions, it’s manipulation to the other person
• You always wish you stayed in contact with someone
• Always let yourself be happy

Hey, what’s shakin’? Hey, I’m Rick Jordan. Today, we’re going all in. One of the things you’ll see in articles all the time is around regrets when you’re on your deathbed, or regrets when you’re old, you see these things posted all the time. And there’s some truth to them. And it’s something that I try to think about a lot is, hey, when I’m 70, when I’m 80, and I’m looking back at my life, and I’m looking back on my contribution, I’m looking back at how I raised my kids, how I showed up as a partner, all of these things, there, there’s a couple of things that come to my mind. And I’m gonna go through really five of the most common things with you today, and walk this journey with me because these are some things to think about as we go into the second half of this year, is just to maybe make some shifts, maybe give some consideration to some of these things, because where you’re at right now, is likely not where you’re meant to be. And what I mean is that you actually could be in the exact right place right now. But six months from now, heck, even six weeks from now, where you’re at right now should not be where you’re at six weeks from now, because you should always be growing, you should always be moving that way, you don’t have any of these to experience. 

There are some of these, I’m going to give you my take on today. And really how I see them, because there’s all these quotes that are posted out there about don’t regret this when you’re on your deathbed and all that, but I’m going to give some context and some color to them today that actually is straight from my heart. Okay, here we go. The first one is, I wish I had the courage to live true to myself, not what others expected of me. I wish I had the courage to live true to myself, not the life others expected of me. Now, when I say these two phrases here, right, because they’re kind of contradicting, it’s like courage is something because we’re squashed that way. And in many books that I’ve read, I’ve always read around, Hey, be your true self, you know, let yourself shine through. There’s a, but all of these things that I’m looking at, it’s like nobody actually grasps the emotion of what you go through. Because if you’re a good person, or at least what I would call a good person, you understand what I do, and you feel that you’re on this earth to really be around for other people. That’s a lot of people that could be the general public, like how this is broadcast right? 

Now, this could be the, you as a parent, he was a spouse, he was a partner around for those people. And of course, you want to do things that make them happy. But at the same time, you have to be true to yourself. Because if your glass is already empty, there’s no possible way that you can give any of yourself to anybody else. And you have to constantly be refilling that. Now, the other thing is that you have to truly examine where you’re at today. Because if you place yourself right, maybe you’re maybe you’re 30 right now, or 31. And you place yourself when you’re 70 or 71. And you’re looking back, and you’re thinking about all these things, it’s like do the reverse right now. You’re 30 years old, look forward, maybe you’re 40 years old, look forward and be like what am I looking at down the road, because your choices today are affecting who you are becoming tomorrow. And the following year, your choices today are affecting exactly what your potential is going to be because your potential can shift. On any given day, because of the choices that you make, you can either grow it, you can either raise it, or you can squash it. 

So when you’re staying in any kind of situation that is not right for you that could be toxic. Or maybe you’re not going after something that could be the best possible thing for you. Either one of those two things my friend David Meltzer always talks about today about having compassion for yourself today and making the choices that you need to continue to move forward and grow, to let things go that you need to let go and to continue investing into things that will help you grow. He says, Be kind to your future self. Love that. I love that. 

The second one which is very near and dear to my heart is people say Oh, I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. And when they say something like this, I kind of scratch my head a little bit because really, that’s not what they mean. What they mean is that they wish they were around more with other people because outside of sleep, your job, your company, if you if you’re growing a company, if you own a company, whatever you put work into is it’s called work for most people, that is really the second place that you spend your most time in life sometimes even the first with that other one just sleeping. Okay, so if it’s sleep and your job That really means that everybody else kind of gets what’s left over from you. You track me on that. But at the same time, here’s what I want you to really think about because that sounds super dark and dismal, doesn’t it? 

Here’s what I want you to think about. Because all of that is a symbiotic relationship, including sleep, you have to have sleep. And if you have kids, this is especially important. You and I have kids, my kids are turning 16. Okay, and I look back, and it’s like, there are times where I wish I would have been there more with them. And those were choices that I had to make. And at the same time, I think about Carly Fiona Carly Fiorina, I’m sorry, there’s an art in her name, Carly Fiorina, she was the first female CEO of Hewlett Packard. And I was reading an article about her and how they asked her it’s like, what about all the time away from your kids being the CEO of a multibillion-dollar company? And what she said really resonated with me. She was like, I don’t regret it. It’s like, yeah, I made mistakes, I’m human. There are times that I should have been there that I wasn’t. But what I did is I made a priority, because everything in life has priorities. And my kids, of course, are one of my top priorities. 

Just like me, just like Rick Jordan, my kids are one of my top priorities. And when she talked about this, she was like, but still, I made sure that I was there for every single important moment, because that’s something that you can still carve out time for, and still fulfill your responsibilities, your obligations to where you work, and also pursuing your own passion. All of this stuff can flow and function together. This is not a give-and-take scenario. This is not an if then this is a simple matter of putting time down for all of these things. And being a student of your calendar, there are going to be times that you mess up with this, there are going to be times when things happen. In fact, even this week, right? I am passing up a very lucrative speaking engagement at a large event. Because it’s my kid’s birthday, I changed my flight, because I’m like, You know what, and I told them, like, if you can shift my slot, that would be awesome. If you can, I understand, because it’s my kids’ 16th birthday. And it’s one of the biggest opportunities for me to spend time with them. Because that, to me is an important moment. I will spend the time with what’s important to me. 

And sometimes you have to make those hard choices. Sometimes you have to pass up on something else. But you know what because your intentions are good because you’re going to try to make it for all those important moments for whoever or whatever it is. Those things have come back around, I have no doubts, I have no doubts. Life can be hard choices can be difficult. But at the same time, when you’re good intentions, things are always going to turn out exactly the way they’re supposed to, and exactly in a good way. Because it’s all going to be okay. Number three is I wish I had the courage to express my feelings, you know, so many people bottle this stuff up. And this actually is, I’m going to be straight, this is actually a form of manipulation. When you don’t express your feelings, you’re actually manipulating the other person’s emotions. 

That’s what you’re attempting to do. When you don’t express these things. And you don’t tell somebody how you feel, it’s actually a scenario where the other person will not have even the opportunity to respond to you. This is something I’m hitting hard on right now. Because you should always express how you feel, even if you think it’s going to upset the other person. Now there’s a way to do this, there’s a way to do this respectfully, there’s a way to do this with compassion for the other person, there’s a way to do this, to where you’re not blowing up at the other individual because they might not have even done anything in a bad way. Maybe they have good intention student or some people are very manipulative. They can be and that’s a form of self-preservation. Okay, so I’m not talking about those individuals, but the other ones that you interact with, if you withhold your feelings from them, you’re actually attempting to manipulate their feelings, and their emotions by not allowing them not respecting them the opportunity to respond. When you just pass up the moment to talk about it, you bottle it up inside, eventually, it’s gonna burst like a pressure cooker. 

And at the same time, that’s not fair to the other person either because all of a sudden, they’re getting flooded with all this stuff. And they don’t even know what hit them, or where all of this came from because it wasn’t discussed over the years. This is something that kills jobs, kills relationships, kills your life, and makes you die inside. Because you’re holding up all of those emotions. So it’s not even just giving respect to the other person. It’s respecting yourself. Remember, be kind to your future self. express how you feel, in a way that is articulated in a way that is passionate in a way that is really respectful of the other person. The fourth one that people say on their deathbed, right as I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. Now, there are friends that I absolutely wish I would have stayed in touch with. And there are other ones that have kind of fallen away. Right? When it comes to relationships, there are three things there’s feed, there’s fall away, and there’s fire. Meaning getting them out of your life fall away is just kind of letting the separation take place. Because of those kinds of things, those last two are really for toxic scenarios. 

So I’m not talking I’ve done episodes on the podcast before around, you know, your circle of friends today might not be your circle of friends tomorrow because you have different viewpoints, and you guys have gone different ways. That’s not what I’m talking about right here, what I’m talking about and staying in touch with your friends are the ones that you probably resonated with, there are two people I can think of right off the top of my head that I wish I had done this with. And now looking back, I can actually learn from those choices, which I would consider to be poor choices on my own self. And understand that. At this point, that’s not something that I’m going to do anymore. I recognize this several years back at this point, that man, I wish I would have stayed in contact with this dude in that dude, two dudes. Now I make it a point and prioritize important people, I feed those relationships, there are certain relationships that you can let go of that you can fall away from certain friendships that you can do. 

So there are other people that you need to get out of your life right now. I mean, completely gone as much as you can anyways. But then there are those relationships that you need to feed. Because all relationships in order to grow, you have to feed them, and you have to feed them good things like I was talking about number three, expressing your emotions, allowing those individuals to express their emotions back. This is one specific regret that a lot of people say that I don’t want you to fall into. I’m sure you can think of people right now that you wish you would have stayed in contact with it could have been like your allies, gotten your back all these years. Change it and make it right right now. The last thing, which is a heavy hitter, number five is I wish I had let myself be happier. Now here is my phrase on that it’s not I wish I was happier. It’s I wish I had let myself be happier. Because when you look back at things, and you look at the way that you responded to certain situations, because no matter what, no matter what if you’re in any kind of disagreements, or you feel like you’ve been wronged in some situation, there’s always a part that you had to play in that. 

But even more so than this, and I want you to hear this today. Because you may have gone through a period of life where you were unaware of something with yourself, absolutely unaware of it. But then there comes this moment where whether it’s by realization, your own realization, because something that’s hit you like a lightning bolt, this happens a lot with relationships. Or maybe you’re speaking with a counselor and the counselor finally, is able to notice something in you and it just hits you again, because they called it out and said this is what this is. And now you become aware or you do some work on yourself with a coach. And you’ve come to a recognition of some things that you want to change in your life because they are keeping you from being happy. And you recognize that you’ve been in that same place for so many years. This has happened to me in many different areas. And when you’re kind of your future self, what you choose to do in that moment is you choose to go in a different direction. Because once you become aware, once you become aware of who you are and what you’re doing, and what’s around you and that you don’t want them anymore. When you do not change that now you are accepting the role of a victim. 

That straight truth and you will continuously live that role of a victim and the worst part is, this is the shittiest part is you’re not a victim to that other person. You are not a victim to that other person that might be doing something to you. You are a victim of yourself at this point. You are abusing yourself you are not allowing yourself to be happy because you are choosing to stay in the shit. I’ve had this many times in my life where some of these choices are hard, but they suck. But coming through on the other side is where you find happiness. So allow yourself to be happy. Stop playing both the role of the victim and the abuser in your own life. At least five things are things that I don’t want you to experience but that last one is hard-hitting. It’s time to be happy. It’s time to move forward with whatever it is maybe your dreams, maybe your purpose, maybe your vision, maybe something new you wanted to try this last one. Allow yourself to be happy and be kind to your future self.

Go ALL IN.