Jodi Wellman on How to Live More Fully and Intentionally

02/01/25 • 88 min

How many Mondays do you have left?

Statistically, we all get about 4,000 Mondays in our lifetime, so if you're halfway through your life, you might have roughly 2,000 Mondays to go. The good news is that you are in charge of how you spend those days, the question is will you be toiling away at a job that you hate, or will you be creating a career that you love? Will you choose to scroll mindlessly for hours a day, or will you pursue hobbies and travel that light you up? Will you be dreading the inevitable end, or will you be living your life in full in a way that allows you to meet the Grim Reaper with a smile?

These are the existential ponderances in which Jodi Wellman thrives. Jodi is a speaker, author, executive coach, and facilitator of living lives worth living. She founded Four Thousand Mondays to help people make the most of the time they are lucky to be above ground.

Jodi has a Master's of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, where she is also an Assistant Instructor and facilitator in the Penn Resilience Program. She is an ICF Professional Certified Coach and a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach. Jodi has been featured in The New York Times, Oprah Daily, Fast Company, CNBC, Forbes, Psychology Today, and The Los Angeles Times, to just name a few. Jodi's TEDx talk, How Death Can Bring You Back to Life, has over 1.3 million views and was the 14th most-watched TEDx talk in 2022.

Her new book, You Only Die Once: How to Make It to the End with No Regrets, made Adam Grant's Summer Reading List, is a Next Big Idea Club must-read.

Jodi’s book, work, and life show us all how we can gain a newfound appreciation for our lives and prioritize what truly matters. Her book uses a blend of research, personal anecdotes, and practical exercises all done with a sharp sense of humor that guides us through self-assessment, habit identification, and action planning, encouraging us to break free from routine, discover our passions, and live a life in full - brimming with vitality and purpose.

How many Mondays do you have left?

Her new book, You Only Die Once: How to Make It to the End with No Regrets, made Adam Grant's Summer Reading List, is a Next Big Idea Club must-read.

Previous Episode

Drs. Randy Brazie and Geoffrey VanderPal on the New Science of Decision Making

I suspect that there are times you may feel overwhelmed by the sheer number and complexity of nonstop decisions you need to make. To further complicate matters, you may believe that some decisions require rational (brain) decision making, while others call for you to "go with your gut." But what if you could integrate the two - your brain and your gut - in a way to help you become the calm and steadfast person, and leader, you would like to be. What if you could combine both rational logical thoughts with your more instinctual feelings?

With their combined expertise in both business and medicine, Drs. Geoffrey VanderPal and Randy Brazie have developed an approach to do just that - by taking the latest scientific understanding of the human nervous system, drawing upon the Polyvagal Theory, to understand how the brain and the gut can make decisions together.

In their new book, The Steadfast Leader: Control Anxiety, Make Confident Decisions, and Focus Your Team Using the New Science of Leadership, they provide an approach that shifts away from the tension caused by "either-or" to using "both-and" and how that works better in every situation. Their work provides fascinating research findings along with real-world case studies and relatable examples that demonstrate practical, cutting-edge neuroscientific concepts that can help you stay focused and make better decisions―for yourself, your team, and your organization

Drs. Brazie and VanderPal are pioneers in the application of the Polyvagal Theory’s application in not only leadership and business situations, but also to each of us as individuals as a means to forge deeper and more authentic connections and relationships. In doing so it provides another approach for all of us to use as a way to help us live our lives more fully, and make better decisions.

Next Episode

Daniel Kraft, MD, on Predicting the Future of Technology and Healthcare - and Helping to Create It

Prescription medications are fairly controversial these days – cost, insurance coverage, efficacy, and too often, medications are dosed incorrectly, cause toxic side effects or just don't work. But what if we could change how we prescribe drugs, what if there was a 3D printer that could design pills that adapt to an individual’s needs, and maybe print-on-demand the medications tailored to the patient?

Or what if there was a real-world device that worked like the diagnostic Tricorder we imagined watching Star Trek? How about AI-infused antiviral discoveries and laboratory-level diagnostic tools accessible via your smartphone?

These ideas and technologies, and many more, are paving the way to a more democratized, connected and data-driven future of medicine, and personalized care. And this is the world where Dr. Daniel Kraft thrives.

Daniel is a Stanford and Harvard trained physician-scientist with more than 25 years of experience in clinical practice, biomedical research, and innovation. He is Founder and Chair for NextMed.Health, a program which explores convergent, rapidly developing technologies and their potential to reshape the future of health and biomedicine, and he is the Faculty Chair for Medicine at Singularity University.

I’m not sure if we can call Daniel a medical futurist, as he seems to be a co-creator of that future, but I asked about what some of the various technologies transforming patient care in the next decade may be, as well as some of the exciting innovations he’s seen in regenerative medicine and stem cell therapies recently. Daniel had a great deal to say about his thoughts on that vis-à-vis personalized medicine.

We wrapped up with Daniel sharing who’s influenced you him and his work, and the various mentors he had in his various areas of interest. He also shared advice for young medical professionals interested in innovation and entrepreneurship. Daniel’s work and life are a testament to the benefit that cross-disciplinary approaches, augmented by technological innovations, can bring to medicine and healthcare. While Daniel’s work saves lives, he also serves as an inspiration for all of us to live our lives more fully.