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End-of-Life Planning: Why You Should Do It Now, and How, with Michelle Mathai

Release Date: 08/08/2022

Ep. 098 | The Brave Habit: Cultivating Bravery in Daily Life, with Todd Henry

Andrew Petty is Dying

What is bravery, and why is it so important? What are some of the common counterfeits of bravery? How can we detect and eliminate them from our own lives? How can we get braver? As an “arms dealer for the creative revolution," is the author of seven books and a veteran podcaster of 19 years who speaks internationally on creativity, productivity, and passion for work, and helps people and teams generate brilliant ideas. Todd's new book, The Brave Habit, is a concise, persuasive, and timely treatise on bravery. In today's conversation, we explore bravery through the lens of The...

Ep. 097 | Evolve: Create an Ending to Make Way for a New Beginning

Andrew Petty is Dying

This episode is different in a few notable ways. First, it’s extemporaneous. Second, I recorded it to video for release on my fledgling YouTube channel, where all of my past episodes currently reside. Finally, I share news about the future of the podcast–an ending to make way for a new beginning. Key moments in this episode include: 00:00:01 - Embracing Change and New Beginnings 00:03:24 - Pursuing a Unified Framework 00:08:07 - Making Bold Choices 00:11:10 - Moving Forward with Conviction 00:13:48 - Seeking Audience Input Remember, you ARE going to die. But you’re not dead yet....

Ep. 096 | Look Up, Let Go, and Live, with Chris Ray

Andrew Petty is Dying

Do you ever feel powerless against your hurts, hang-ups, and habits? Chris Ray's hurts, hang-ups, and habits literally killed him. Remarkably, his encounter with Mortality wasn't permanent, and Chris returned transformed. Chris is no longer powerless against his hurts, hang-ups, and habits because he has learned to look up and let go. If we have ears to hear, we can learn the same lessons from Chris’ story without a harrowing ordeal of our own. If we have the courage to add Action to our Insights, we can experience transformation, too. I met Chris through a mutual friend...

Ep. 095 | How to Become Someone You Feel Genuinely Good About

Andrew Petty is Dying

Who are you? A big question, for sure, and not a slow pitch over the plate for most of us. But it’s a pitch that is critical for us to get good at hitting. As of this recording, I’m just a couple days removed from the first Growth Camp of 2024, where we plumbed the time-proven depths of the Hero’s Journey framework to go beyond resolutions and discover a heroic path to our best year yet. Once again, the importance of who we are–that is, the quality of our character and our responses in life’s defining moments–rose to the surface and stayed there, demanding our...

Ep. 094 | Beyond Resolutions: A Heroic Path to Your Best Year Yet

Andrew Petty is Dying

Each new year presents the opportunity for a new adventure. Often we start out strong but fizzle in a month or two. Our fragile resolve sabotages even our most well-intended and heartfelt resolutions. We need something stronger than our own resolve and more reliable than our resolutions. As we kick off a new year, I invite you to go with me beyond resolutions to find a heroic path to your best year yet. In this episode, you will: Learn about the Hero’s Journey. Be equipped to embark on a transformative journey through the Hero's journey framework. Discover a path to...

Ep 093 | Tap into the Transformative Power of Pain, with Audrey Dwyer

Andrew Petty is Dying

Are you tired of feeling stuck and overwhelmed in the face of life's challenges? Have you tried to push away pain and ignore its lessons, only to find yourself feeling even more lost and disconnected? It's time to break free from the ineffective pattern of avoiding pain and embrace it as a powerful teacher. By leaning into the discomfort and allowing ourselves to learn from our pain, we open the door to personal growth and resilience. It's time to rewrite your story and discover the transformative power of embracing pain as a teacher. In this episode, you will: Discover how Audrey...

Ep. 092 | Crack the Contentment Code: Find the Path to Contentment

Andrew Petty is Dying

If you're feeling trapped in a cycle of constant striving and never reaching true contentment, you’re not alone. Maybe you've been chasing external achievements, thinking they will bring you lasting fulfillment, only to find that they leave you empty inside. Perhaps you've been seeking validation from others, hoping that their approval will bring you a sense of worth, only to discover that it's fleeting and insubstantial. Or maybe you've been relentlessly pursuing material possessions, believing they will bring you happiness, only to realize that they only provide temporary...

Ep 091 | My Hero’s Journey: Lessons Learned on the Road to Growth Camp 2023

Andrew Petty is Dying

The road to Growth Camp 2023--an event built around the Hero's Journey--was a Hero's Journey of its own. In this episode, I invite you along on that Journey and share some of the key lessons I learned from it. I hope my story equips and encourages you to embark on your own Hero’s Journey or persevere in the one you’re already on. In this episode: Discover the transformative power of the Hero's journey framework to guide your personal growth and overcome obstacles. Learn the art of perseverance and unlock the key to conquering challenges on your path to success. Uncover the...

Ep. 090 | A Tale of Two Mountaineers: How Comfort Sabotages Our Contentment, and What to Do About It

Andrew Petty is Dying

Do you desire genuine fulfillment and contentment? Are you searching for a way to achieve true satisfaction and inner peace? In this episode, I'll reveal an antidote to discontentment. By embracing the hero's journey, you can unlock the path towards lasting contentment, breaking free from the sabotaging clutches of comfort and convenience. It's simple in principle, but far from easy in reality. Perhaps that's why so many of us avoid it. But don't let that be you. Wide (and easy!) is the way that leads to discontentment, and many find it. Narrow (and hard!) is the way that leads to contentment...

Ep. 089 | Unleashing Your Potential: Chris Slota's Journey to a Purposeful Life

Andrew Petty is Dying

Have you been told that the key to building a fulfilling and meaningful life is to simply follow the conventional path and do what society expects of you? Here's the hard truth: By blindly following this path, you may be feeling stuck, unfulfilled, and lacking a sense of purpose. It's time to break free from these limiting beliefs and discover your true passions, unlocking the potential for personal growth and transformation. Meet Chris Slota Chris Slota embodies the essence of personal growth and transformation. With a background in the corporate world, Chris found himself at a crossroads,...

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Do you have a plan for when you die? Do you have a plan for when your loved ones die?

In 2001, Michelle Mathai was just two years into her first foreign service post as vice consul in Auckland, NZ. She and her parents were on a farewell trip around the island in anticipation of Michelle's imminent departure for a new post in El Salvador. In the blink of an eye, the trip turned tragic when their car, with her dad at the wheel and her mom in the back seat, careened off the road and into the mercilessly icy current of a glacial river. As water rushed in, Michelle was able to kick out the windshield to escape the car, but her desperate attempts to save her parents were unsuccessful.

In this episode, Michelle shares how the complete lack of preparation for her parents' deaths impacted her and her brother. She shares how painful lessons learned from that experience helped her create a very different ending for her brother when he died in 2017 after almost a 20-year battle with brain cancer. And she shares how to have the tough end-of-life conversations with our loved ones NOW--before end-of-life issues become a reality--and what exactly needs to be covered.

Highlights From the Conversation

The hardships that failure to have an end-of-life plan causes when a loved one dies, and the benefits of having a plan
How the grieving process is impacted by lack of end-of-life plans
How to create end-of-life plans with your loved ones
What an end-of-life plan contains
The value of simplifying your life materially so that there’s not so much stuff for loved ones to sort through when you die.
How beauty can be found in the “tough stuff”
Why Michelle has no tolerance for “all the bullshit” anymore, and why you shouldn't either

Making It Matter In YOUR Life

Dying well starts now. It starts with acknowledging the inevitability of our death, allowing that awareness to keep us present in THIS moment, and taking concrete steps today to plan for our ultimate demise. It requires making our Death part of our Life, here and now. It's a formidable and beastly tension to tangle with, but tangle with it we must if we are to depart this life with grace and peace. As I've discovered in the three-plus years that I've been actively cultivating this Mortality Mindset, if we persist in tangling with this tension, it becomes a powerful catalyst for giving the things that matter most the attention they deserve NOW and living the life we were uniquely made to live. Paradoxically, it becomes a friend and ally rather than a detestable and repugnant enemy to be avoided at all costs. As my then-10-year-old son, Macgray, said one night at the dinner table, much to our surprise and amazement, "Death brings meaning to life." When we estrange ourselves from our Mortality, we estrange ourselves from our very Life.

And so we conclude where we began: Do you have a plan for when you die? Do you have a plan for when your loved ones die? If not, what's just one thing you're willing and able to do today to begin assembling a plan?

Let Me Know!

What stuck with YOU from this episode? Message me on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn @AndrewPettyCoach, or email me at [email protected].

Be sure to tune in to the next episode--a sort of mirror image of this episode. Terminal brain cancer warrior, Pam Blackburn, will offer her final word from the sacred space she now inhabits between life and death. It is both heartrending and intensely clarifying in the most useful of ways.

I’m so glad you tuned in today. Don’t forget to follow this show, and I’ll see you next time on Andrew Petty is Dying.

Let’s Connect

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