737 Defy Regret and Break Your Limits with Bronnie Ware

LIVE WITHOUT REGRET. I am going to die. You are going to die. It’s a fact that we can’t escape. Even though it can be hard to talk about, it will help you live a better life if you have the courage to accept it. You might spend more time with the people you love, say how you were actually feeling, or go after that dream. In the end, the key to life might actually be death. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I talk about the power of accepting death with an inspiring woman who spent 8 years working with the dying: Bronnie Ware. Bronnie Ware is a teacher of courage and regret-free living. Having sat by the bedsides of the terminally ill for several years, she knows the pain of dying with regret. She has written three books: The Top Five Regrets of Dying, Your Year for Change, and Bloom. Bronnie says that the way to have more inner peace is to be kinder to yourself. We have to be willing to let more joy in. If you’re doing your best, you’re doing enough. So get ready to learn about the top regrets of the dying and how you can live a more fulfilling life on Episode 737. Some Questions I Ask: Why don’t we allow ourselves to be happy? (16:00) If there were a sixth regret of the dying, what would it be? (18:00) How can you learn how to receive? (20:00) Why did you want to write a new book? (28:00) How do you handle having an autoimmune disease? (32:00) Who were the most courageous people you worked with? (38:00) In This Episode You Will Learn: The top five regrets of the dying (8:15) Why it’s important to use death as a tool for life (12:30) Bronnie’s journey through depression (23:00) The importance of leaving space (30:00) How to allow more joy in your life (36:00) How to find inner peace (39:00) Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 737 with bestselling author Bronnie Ware. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:31Lewis Howes?

  Brett Favre said, "You're never guaranteed about next year." People ask what you think of next season. You have to seize the opportunities when they're right in front of you. Welcome to this episode. It's all about regrets and defying regret and breaking through the limits that we have in our own life that hold us back and that later in our life, we end up regretting because we never did the things we wanted to do. We never said the things we wanted to say. We never took the chances or the risks on living the life we wanted to live. We allow fear, insecurity, other people's opinions to hold us back in such big ways

• 1:13Lewis Howes?

  that we end up regretting later in life. And that's what this is all about. Bronnie Ware is the author of the mega hit and memoir, "The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: Your Year for Change and Bloom." And she is an inspirational speaker and songwriter as well and took over the world with her book, "The Top Five Regrets of the Dying." And in this interview, we talk about the biggest lessons Bronnie learned about while working with dying patients for so many years. The power of being comfortable with vulnerability when someone is in that state. The importance of unplanned space and time.

• 1:53Lewis Howes?

  You guys know that I always talk about scheduling your days and scheduling the action steps you're going to take in order to prove. That you're capable of these things and move your life forward and move your dreams forward. But there's also power in unplanned space and time. I actually plan my space and time. I'll, I'll put it in the, the calendar and schedule it as free time. But uh, there's power in having that space so that you can be more creative and how to appreciate life more now and not at the end of our life. That and so much more. I'm super excited about this one. Make sure to share with your friends. LewisHowes.com/737. And now's the perfect time of year to reflect back and ask yourself, is there anything that

• 2:38Lewis Howes?

  you regret this year? Is there anything that you wish you would have said, that you wish you would have done? You wish you wouldn't have said or wouldn't have done? And make a list of these things. What do you regret from this year? What, what held you back this year? And uh, how can you make it right? How can you move forward? How can you accept what you did, learn, grow, and be braver moving forward? Take bigger risks and continue to live a life that impacts and is in service to other people. That's what you gotta think about and reflect on. And I'd love for you to, to make a list and let me know. Feel free to share with me on Instagram at Lewis Howes and let me know. All right, guys, I'm excited about this one.

• 3:23Lewis Howes?

  Don't let 2019 or any year be the year that you regret not going for something. Don't let yourself reflect at the end of next year and say, what is it that I wish I would have done? I wish I would have gone after, I wish I would at least given it a full effort. Don't regret moving forward. Without further ado, let me introduce to you to the one, to the only Bronnie Ware. Welcome everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. We've got Bronnie Ware in the house. Good to see you. Thank you for being here all the way from Australia.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, pleasure.

• 3:59Lewis Howes?

  You're the author of a number of books. One of your biggest hits called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, which most people have seen or heard about this. And you've got a new book out called Bloom. The tale of courage, surrender, and breaking through upper limits, which I think is really insightful as well. So, thank you for being here. I want to share a little bit about your story and learn more about this because this book came from working with people who were about to die.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:25Lewis Howes?

  Like, they had a few years left, or they were...

• 4:28Speaker 01

  A few weeks or months.

• 4:29Lewis Howes?

  A few weeks. So it was like the worst of conditions.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  They'd gone home to die.

• 4:33Lewis Howes?

  They'd gone home to die. How many people were you working with?

• 4:37Speaker 01

  Well, I worked for about eight years, looking after dying people, so a couple of hundred.

• 4:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  These were people who could afford home care, and they were in hospital, and they knew they were dying, and they'd chosen to go home and have care at home.

• 4:52Lewis Howes?

  And you were the one that would go in to their home?

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Yes, for 12-hour shifts from 8:00 in the morning till 8:00 at night, five or six days a week. And I'd stay with them. For some, it was three weeks; some it was up to three months, but no one, no one longer than that.

• 5:06Lewis Howes?

  Three months was the max, usually. And were people still able to communicate well and expressive? And, or were some of them kind of fading?

• 5:16Speaker 01

  When I first met most of them, they could still communicate well, but they certainly faded over time. And because of that, they, their energy levels became so low that they didn't waste time on small talk.

• 5:31Lewis Howes?

  It was like, here it is. Here's how I feel. Because they knew that life is ending soon.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  And some of them had a lot to say.

• 5:39Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Some of them just were in deep contemplation for quite a while with the shock and the grief of dying. But some of them just had... There were some who I've written about and they actually made me promise that I would share their message onward because they had such powerful regrets, and they didn't want other people to make the same mistakes. So I was very blessed, you know, to be able to hear these messages over and over and over again and realize... Okay, this is what it looks and feels like to be dying with regret. There's no way I'm going down that road myself.

• 6:14Lewis Howes?

  Was there anyone that you were working with that didn't have regrets?

• 6:16Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, there were, there were. And, and there were, there were people who, you know, would have done things differently, but didn't sort of judge themselves as harshly as to call it regret.

• 6:27Lewis Howes?

  They still accepted where they were?

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, but there were more people who had regrets than didn't. And those who didn't were people who, most of them had a really good sense of humor. Um, they also had very good communication and family relationships or good networks of friends around them. They had connection.

• 6:46Lewis Howes?

  And they came and supported or saw them and you got to witness that?

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, and, and they'd lived full, full lives in terms of love and connection.

• 6:55Lewis Howes?

  What would you say is the sixth regret, if there was a sixth one? Because you said there's top five regrets and we can share those quickly. The first one is I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself and not the life that others expected me. And I think so many people live what their parents want them to do, their friends, their society, right?

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Society, yeah.

• 7:16Lewis Howes?

  We see that a lot and it's sad. We were just talking about this with another guest, Robert Green, who was on, who was like, most people, they wake up at like twenty seven or thirty and they realize like I'm down a path that I don't want to do.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:28Lewis Howes?

  They have like a quarter life crisis or something. And they're like, what do I really want to do? What did I want to do as a child?

• 7:34Speaker 01

  Or wake up at fifty or sixty and say that.

• 7:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's even worse.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:40Lewis Howes?

  That's even worse.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  But it's true, it happens a lot.

• 7:42Lewis Howes?

  So that's the first, the first regret. The second one is I wish I hadn't worked so hard. Now, I'm curious about this because I actually believe in working really hard on a greater purpose.

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:56Lewis Howes?

  A purpose to impact the people around you, your society, your community, and to spread a message.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 8:04Lewis Howes?

  And so I go back and forth when I read that, I'm like. What does that mean, not work so hard? Does it mean like, just chill out all day and relax with your friends and, and you know?

• 8:15Speaker 01

  No, I mean.

• 8:16Lewis Howes?

  You gotta make a living, you wanna make an impact, you wanna achieve certain things, right?

• 8:20Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, but it's also about working efficiently, which I'm sure you do. And it's about leaving space for other areas of your life and not making work your whole life. So it's not about working so hard that you don't put all of your, your passion into what you love doing. Especially if, if you've done the work and you've got yourself onto a path where you're doing your life's work. And so, of course, we're passionate about it. We want to, you know, bring that message out and share it and, and give it our best love. But it's not our whole life. And we need to actually turn off from work sometimes and say, okay, well, now I'm going to spend time

• 9:01Speaker 01

  with relationships, with friends, with family, with movement, with nature.

• 9:06Lewis Howes?

  Adventure, play.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  All, all of that, because all of that nourishes our soul as well. And the more we can find space or create space for those other areas, the more heart we bring to our work anyway, and the more efficiency we bring to our work.

• 9:22Lewis Howes?

  That's right.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  Because it's all well and good to work a 60-hour week, but if you're really only doing 10 hours of quality work.

• 9:29Lewis Howes?

  And if your health is suffering or your relationships are suffering, you're missing the juice of life.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  And that's not success, yeah.

• 9:34Lewis Howes?

  I agree. The third regret is I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings. Do most people not express themselves?

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Um, not to the depth that they'd like to.

• 9:44Lewis Howes?

  Why is that? And they're afraid of what other people think about them?

• 9:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, the vulnerability. And sometimes just the communication channels haven't been developed enough, so they don't actually know how to. It's not so much that they, they don't want to, that certainly there are a couple of patients in there who really wanted to, but just didn't know how to start the ball rolling, even with their families. And, you know, a gentleman in his 90s. Died feeling like his family didn't even know him.

• 10:09Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  And he wanted to, but he just couldn't start the ball rolling to open up to that level of vulnerability.

• 10:16Lewis Howes?

  Do a lot of these individuals write letters of their feelings and then like leave them behind when they're gone?

• 10:20Speaker 01

  Well, some did, but no, not many, not many. I mean, I had to pass on messages a lot. And, and I think other carers sometimes play that role as well.

• 10:29Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  But what I found was with my patients, I, I ended up being their main carer. So I would go in for a day or two and, and that's what happens when someone's home sick. They get three or four different carers over the first week or two. And then they say, I want Bronnie or I want so and so. And so you become their main carer. And so, you know, there were times they'd say, I want you to tell my son this. And I'd say, well, you're still alive. You can tell him yourself. Come on, you can do it. And, or I would facilitate, uh, you know, a start of a conversation sometimes and then silently leave the room.

• 11:04Lewis Howes?

  Sneak out, yeah, yeah. That's good. Okay, so wishing we had the courage to express our feelings. How do you think we can express our feelings now while we're alive and healthy and well? So that we don't regret that. What is the process to expressing ourselves better?

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Well, I think it's how to avoid all of the regrets. And that is to face the fact that we're going to die and then we're on limited time. And the more we can actually bring that realization into our belief systems and our conversations and our, and society's beliefs, then the more courage we have anyway, because we realize, okay, I, I don't have all the time in the world to do what I want to do and to say what I need to say and everything else. And so to find those levels of vulnerability, it takes courage. All of, any, any form of regret-free living is going to take immense courage. But when you use death as a tool for living and you say, I'm on limited time,

• 12:02Speaker 01

  you do find that courage because not only do you realize you've got to say this stuff or you're going to regret it later, or you're going to leave it too late. But you also just end up not caring so much what people think of you because they're going to die, you're gonna die, we're all just doing the best we can. And you really do let go of the opinions of others when you, when you face death completely, like when you courageously, yeah, and it doesn't mean you, you don't stop loving, but you stop caring about all the superficial stuff. And so you do learn to be more courageous because you realise, okay, this may or may not be received how, if, if you're expressing some really deep vulnerability.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  It may or may not be received how you'd love it to be received, but it's better than not saying it. It's better than dying with the regret of having put it inside.

• 12:55Lewis Howes?

  Not sharing, yeah. The fourth one is I wish I'd stayed in touch with my friends. People miss, lose out of touch with their friends a lot, you think?

• 13:02Speaker 01

  Um, well, this is, this was before social media.

• 13:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and now you can like check in and.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and even, you know, checking in through social media and letting people know that you're there. It's fantastic, but it's never going to.

• 13:13Lewis Howes?

  Still superficial, at a level, right, yeah.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  It's not the same as having a face-to-face conversation or a good laugh with your old friends, or even a phone call's better than, than a social media thing or a text.

• 13:26Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Um, but yeah, it was, it was a deep regret because friends become your family in so many ways and they hold a lot of memories for you as well. A lot of the fun memories that you may not necessarily have shared with your family. I mean, some,

• 13:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  some families are entwined and their brothers and sisters are their best mates, but most of us have, choose our own family of friends. And so, yeah, friends can really bring home memories and do reminiscing because

• 13:55Lewis Howes?

  nostalgia and yeah.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  Dying people want to live as long as they can and they want to reflect and they want to do some storytelling and some giggling and some reminiscing about the good old days and if you lose touch with your friends, you're there with maybe, you know, a loving-hearted carer and your, and your adult kids or your young kids, whatever, or no one.

• 14:17Lewis Howes?

  You're just reflecting to yourself, having a conversation about the glory days or something. Yeah.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, as in someone saying, and then you might be only be able to handle a ten minute conversation every few hours, but that ten minute conversation can just, you know, I've seen people just lying there with tears of laughter in their eyes and and they're just like, oh, I can't talk anymore, just give me a rest. But they're just so happy because they've had their friends visiting and sharing those memories.

• 14:43Lewis Howes?

  That's nice.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And I wish I'd let myself be happier. Why do we not allow ourselves to be happy?

• 14:51Speaker 01

  I think a lot of it's probably worth, you know, we don't realize we deserve to be. We're shaped again by the opinions of others. Um, don't wanna look a fool, don't wanna be too silly and childish. Um, when that's actually great medicine to be like that. It's about the opinions of others and and just realizing we actually are allowed to be that just because someone says we're this and this and this and this, doesn't mean we're any of that.

• 15:20Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so, you know, you're, you know, something I used to cop as a kid, you're never gonna, you you're a dreamer, you'll never amount to anything, you know, stuff like that.

• 15:29Lewis Howes?

  You used to hear that?

• 15:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, all the time from particularly from my father and.

• 15:34Lewis Howes?

  That's encouraging.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Oh, that's not even, that's like one percent.

• 15:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, right.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  That's okay, though, that's okay, we healed as best we could.

• 15:42Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  But I did take that on for a long time because whenever I'd have these dreams, I'd think, well, I'm never going to amount to anything. And I was a singer songwriter, I started playing when I was thirty five, wrote my first song. And I'd be up on the stage and I'd be playing and I'd just, that's all I'd hear in my head. You know, you're a dreamer, this is never gonna amount to anything. And I'd just shake and just dream of walking off the stage. And then eventually I, you know, did my own healing and realized, well, that's his stuff. That's his regrets and it's really got nothing to do with me. And if I'm not going to dream, I'm not going to ever get anywhere. You've got to be a dreamer.

• 16:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  You have to dare to dream. And it's only the dreamers that that really make huge, significant, beautiful change in the world that shake shake up things.

• 16:31Lewis Howes?

  That's it.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 16:32Lewis Howes?

  That's it. And if there was an additional regret, what would it be? Like another top regret, like a sixth one of them, the missing regret?

• 16:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:43Lewis Howes?

  Or maybe something you've seen over the last six years.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  It's about kindness, like don't underestimate the power of kindness to ourselves and to each other. Because there was a lot of self-loathing with with the dying people and you see it in living people. Yeah.

• 16:58Lewis Howes?

  Constantly.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, and regret is is just a very harsh judgment of ourselves. I've learnt to look back on what I could call regrets and see them now with compassion and think, okay, well, that's who I was back then. I'm going to love that broken person from who I am now. I'm not going to judge her with regret, I'm going to love her and think you did the best as who you were then. So I would say the the sixth regret would possibly be not learning the power of kindness. Because.

• 17:32Lewis Howes?

  To yourself and others.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, to ourselves and to others because we can't only give it to others. It's really has to, the hardest bit is, you know, the hardest bit is not even giving it to ourselves, it's receiving it from ourselves.

• 17:45Lewis Howes?

  Oh, that's true.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  You know, we can say, I love you as much as you need to in the mirror to yourself or or believe it. But to actually stop and think, okay, I'm actually going to receive this kindness and this love. That's a whole different kettle of fish.

• 18:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow, most of us do a bad job of receiving in general, receiving compliments, acknowledgement, love.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:09Lewis Howes?

  We seem to like push it back on people.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:12Lewis Howes?

  Or reject it and say, ah, it wasn't that big a deal, you know, when someone compliments us.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 18:16Lewis Howes?

  What are we doing when we reject that love kindness from others or from ourselves? What are we saying?

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Well, we're denying the pleasure of giving, you know.

• 18:27Lewis Howes?

  From someone else.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Yes, we're denying them the pleasure, we're disregarding the love and the quality of words and intention that they're giving us. So that in itself is creating a wall and not actually leaving an open slot to say, okay, thank you, good on you, you know, I'll take that. And when we're doing it to ourselves and not receiving our own love ourselves, well, we're just keeping ourselves small and undeserving. When we're, we're a part of God, we're, we're a part of divinity and the grandness of infinite unconditional love. So we're, we're disconnecting from that.

• 19:09Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So be willing to receive. How does someone learn how to do that when they've conditioned themselves to never receive their whole life?

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Well, like anything, you get better with practice.

• 19:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Step by step. And even practicing in front of a mirror initially, if, if you can't do it in other ways, to stand there and I can guarantee if you've never done it before, you'll cry your eyes out. You know, if you're standing in front of a mirror and giving yourself love and then trying to receive it, you know, you'll have a good cry, your heart will crack open.

• 19:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly. If you're willing to do it, you've got to be willing.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:44Lewis Howes?

  How long were you working with patients who were dying?

• 19:46Speaker 01

  About eight years.

• 19:47Lewis Howes?

  Eight years?

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:48Lewis Howes?

  And then after those eight years, you decided you wanted to have your own child, is that right?

• 19:54Speaker 01

  In between that and, and my, my daughter, I set up a songwriting program in a women's jail. And I taught songwriting for about a year in a women's jail.

• 20:03Lewis Howes?

  After you were done with the eight years of working with patients?

• 20:05Speaker 01

  I wanted to be where there was some hope.

• 20:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  And, and because, you know, obviously with dying, they, they may find their peace, but these were people whose bodies were, were closing down. So I wanted to work where I could actually give hope and potentially change lives that way.

• 20:22Lewis Howes?

  How long did you do that for?

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Not quite a year. Yeah, I, I, through one of my patients, I, I got some funding through one of my patients, a friend of one of my patients. Patient was a really hard woman and this friend of hers said, if you can look after her, you can do anything. I'm going to find the funding for you.

• 20:40Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  So she helped me find the funding. It took us a while to get the money. And then I approached a jail and they said, sure. So I was like a volunteer in their eyes.

• 20:48Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  And so I did it for about a year and then I burnt out, you know, after giving and giving and giving and yeah, burnt out big time, became suicidally depressed for, for a while. And then as I started coming through that and got bored of being a victim and bored of being depressed and was healing, that's when my work. Just exploded. And then, yeah, then I um started having a dream that.

• 21:16Lewis Howes?

  You were, you're writing or your books?

• 21:18Speaker 01

  I was blogging. I was blogging and I'd already written.

• 21:21Lewis Howes?

  During the depression?

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. I wasn't brave enough to say I was depressed while I was blogging.

• 21:25Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  I was just blogging about beautiful things I was noticing and finding the beauty in each day. And then there just came a time where I remember just saying to life, I'm over this. I just, I'm ready to get back into life. Like, help me find a way to get back into life. And the article, Regrets of the Dying, that I'd written six or seven months earlier and had hardly been noticed. It just exploded then.

• 21:50Lewis Howes?

  All of a sudden, it took off somehow?

• 21:52Speaker 01

  It just took off.

• 21:53Lewis Howes?

  Someone caught it and shared it?

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Um, someone in Harvard Business Review shared it. And then the Financial Times in London slammed it because they said, don't tell us not to work too hard, you know, a man's identity is wrapped up, da, da, da. And I was like, well, don't shoot the messenger. These are dying people who have said this. This isn't just some, you know, young woman in Australia living on a farm, not knowing anything. And, and so from that, it sort of went from one place to another. Then I kept having a dream that I, a little girl kept saying, hurry up, I wanna come through. And, um, I had the same dream two or three times. And at the time, I was forty three.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  I'd written off the decision to have a child. And then I, I met my child's father. We, um, I was forty four when we conceived, the second month we tried, and became a first time mum at forty five.

• 22:49Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. And in between that time, my article, I was approached by an agent in America, who signed me to write a book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, that was rejected twenty five times. Um.

• 23:03Lewis Howes?

  You published it yourself then, is that what happened?

• 23:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I just thought, oh, well.

• 23:07Lewis Howes?

  I'll put it up there on Amazon or whatever, yeah.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then it took off because the article was still going viral. And then The Guardian in the UK called the book heart wrenching. And it made a really prominent page of, of The Guardian. And I didn't know any of this because I was just about to have a baby. And I was, I knew it was taking off because the interview requests started coming in and um foreign rights requests started coming in.

• 23:32Lewis Howes?

  Oh, interesting.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:34Lewis Howes?

  Like, oh, there's some nice checks coming in here, yeah.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, potentially, because I didn't know what to do with any of it. And I was just saying, look, we'll get back to you sometime, you know, so I created a new file, you know, foreign rights inquiries, chuck them all in there. And then I was in hospital, in labour, and getting really harassed for interviews.

• 23:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  You know, I was trying to get as much out of the way before the baby came. I was in labour and so I was, you know, doing this and I did a few voice ones, not many. People who somehow found my phone number and just caught me, you know. And so I'd be doing this interview and, and just like, yeah, and then this happened, da, da, da. Can you just hold on a sec? Okay, just hold on one sec, please.

• 24:17Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  You know, I'm going through that.

• 24:19Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  And then going back and so I closed my computer about eleven, eleven thirty at night. And I just sent out a very clear prayer, a bit more of a demand really, and just said, send me some help now. It, it had taken me fourteen years to become an overnight success.

• 24:36Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  So from when I first started doing photography and writing inspirational quotes, this is before the internet, like years before that. And then doing the singer-songwriting thing and then writing the blog and then writing the book. So, but I was ready to quit because I was about to become a mum. I knew there was no second chance. I was forty five. There wasn't going to be a second baby. And so I just sent out a really strong prayer and said, send me some help and send it now because I'm going to quit on this work. I don't care how important it is, how much I've worked on it, I'm going to be present for my baby.

• 25:09Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  And the next morning, I, I had my baby, Eleanor. And, and then I was back in the room and my mum was there and. Some hospital staff flapping around and whatever and then my phone rang and it was Leon from Hay House in Australia. And he's just said, hi Bronnie, you know, it's Leon. You know, everyone's, it was so busy in there. The dinner lady wanted to put down the plate and I still had my computer out with the baby on the boob. And, you know, it was just like, and the phone's ringing, it was just crazy. Yeah, I just, he said, we want to offer you an international publishing deal for the top five regrets of the dying. And I just burst into tears and said, look, the answer's yes, but I've, I've got to call you back.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  You know, I've got to attend to my baby. And he said, oh, how old's your baby? I said, I just had her.

• 26:00Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, so I rang him later that day. So within, you know, within 12 hours of my baby being born, I birthed a book. As such, and left the hospital with a publishing contract and, um, and a beautiful little girl. And because I had all those inquiries from the foreign rights thing, I just sent all of those straight away to Hay House. And my book is the fastest foreign rights seller in Hay House history.

• 26:27Lewis Howes?

  Wow. How many different?

• 26:29Speaker 01

  Twenty nine languages with a film in the pipeline.

• 26:33Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, you know, just from a, from a blog and a book rejection, you don't know, you've got to keep going.

• 26:38Lewis Howes?

  You've got to keep going.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:40Lewis Howes?

  Wow. And then this new book, this came out recently, it's called Bloom.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:45Lewis Howes?

  What's the, um, the premise behind why you wanted to do this new book? And what's the lessons you've learned from these?

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Well, they're both memoirs and I certainly didn't intend to write a second memoir. I had to share a lot in five regrets that I didn't really want to, but did. But the book just came through me, um, my dad had just died and I took a few months off from work. Not because I was devastated, dad and I had healed really well and I felt really very grateful for our relationship. Ending the way it did because there were no regrets. But because I just gave myself a few months off as an excuse. This book just went warm and came through and. So just after my daughter was born. I basically had three things happen together, a baby, a book deal. And then I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis immediately following her birth.

• 27:37Lewis Howes?

  Right afterwards.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, like within, within a month.

• 27:40Lewis Howes?

  How did that happen? Why do you think?

• 27:42Speaker 01

  Well, there were signs of it beforehand, but I guess. Life just wanted me to get to know myself even better and, and truly heal. And so it is common for women in their forties after they have a baby. And I used to get aches and pains whenever I'd go back to my hometown. So I know there were, there was some sort of pain, residual pain.

• 28:03Lewis Howes?

  That you hadn't healed yet.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, yeah. So I just had to um go into a journey of, of surrendering and. Things hadn't worked out with my daughter's biological father, so I was actually a solo mum. Almost immediately, well, from when I birthed her. And um I left the relationship when I was pregnant. And um so, yeah, I was a s- a single mum, forty five. Couldn't even get up and down off a chair some days on my own and. Yeah, so I learnt a lot about surrender and trust. Self-love, self-care, space, especially space. That's probably been.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Been my greatest gift.

• 28:44Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean by space?

• 28:46Speaker 01

  Understanding the importance of leaving space and unplanned time. So not.

• 28:52Lewis Howes?

  Not just being busy all the time.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, and allowing yourself to actually. Have, have space, not just like, okay, I'm gonna stay home and watch a movie. You know, I'm gonna allocate an hour and a half to watch this movie. That's important too. But to actually have time with no plans, just to say. I'm gonna create some space now, I'm just gonna have a day or two off from life. And I mean, I don't have a day or two off from life. I have a child and we've got to eat and everything else.

• 29:19Lewis Howes?

  Without work.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  But with no plans and just see where things go. And it's through that stillness and that space. That so often the answers that we're looking for just come through. And give you shortcuts to what you're trying to do. And instead of trying to control every step of the way and have to know what every single step is. You know, we've got our goals and our plans, but, but to have, by creating space. I've found that I often jump two or three steps of what I thought I had to do. Because within that space, either an insight has come. Or I've ended up in a random conversation with someone and they've given me an answer I needed. Or they know someone who knows someone who knows someone.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, just space and just how healing it is for

• 30:07Lewis Howes?

  So healing.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  For joy, just and just to, just to allow yourself to, you know, be. I was gonna say be a dag, like in Australia, and it's it's like an unaffectionate word for uncool, silly sort of thing, you know. So to just hang out and just not have an agenda. Yeah, just be. Be present.

• 30:28Lewis Howes?

  Be.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Absolutely, Elias.

• 30:30Lewis Howes?

  So you had this autoimmune disease right after your daughter was born and it's caused a lot of pain. Have you how have you handled that over the last six years now?

• 30:38Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 30:38Lewis Howes?

  Since it's started more and more.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  Well, it's been a love and hate relationship.

• 30:44Lewis Howes?

  What do you love and hate about it?

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Well, I hate that I can't currently play the guitar because my fingers don't bend the way they used to. That's my greatest grief, is that my music has been taken from me.

• 30:57Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  But I don't lose hope on that either. And what I love is it's taught me how to be kind to myself and not have that I. It's life's not a penance. We don't have to just keep doing it tough and doing it tough and doing it tough and to prove ourselves or to even be worthy of what comes our way. It's all well and good to say, oh, they deserve it. They worked hard, you know, they were they worked their butt off for twenty years. Well, that's that's fine. They do deserve it. That's fine. But they also may have missed a lot of life in the meantime. So being ill has taught me that as long as you're doing the inner work and you're courageously being as vulnerable as you can and honoring your heart

• 31:40Speaker 01

  and being the best person you can as who you are called to be, not as who society thinks you should be. And that's letting go of all expectations, then that's enough. That's enough and life, life will support that.

• 31:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 31:56Lewis Howes?

  Wow. What's the greatest lesson your daughter's taught you?

• 32:00Speaker 01

  Joy, joy, just, well, joy and worth. Because children just love you so unconditionally. And, and to actually allow yourself to receive that and realise like, why, why would someone love me this much? Like, doesn't she really know that I've got this fault or this fault or this fault, whatever? But they don't, they're just, they're, they're just so giving and, and forgiving and, but joy, because she is, she's full of joy. She's a very strong personality. She's, I'm deeply introverted, she's deeply extroverted. She's very smart, but also highly sensitive. So she naturally commands a lot of attention.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  But within that, yeah, she's just fun. She is so fun.

• 32:51Lewis Howes?

  Great.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it's fantastic.

• 32:55Lewis Howes?

  Do you think life is going to have a lot of pain, no matter what we do? Do you think we're going to experience a lot of pain throughout life? Or does it not have to be so painful?

• 33:05Speaker 01

  You know, it's a great question. I'd like to say it doesn't have to be so painful. And I do believe that it doesn't have to be so painful. I do believe that. But to bring ourselves to a point where we can allow ourselves for it not to be painful is painful.

• 33:27Lewis Howes?

  How so?

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Well, we have to give up all our resistance. We have to give up all our conditioning. We have to find the courage to really honour who we are and be ourselves. And that is where the pain comes in. It's not because life necessarily wants to force us to suffer. It's because we've just got so much resistance to who, and fear of who we could actually be.

• 33:49Lewis Howes?

  Change and evolving.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  And our potential as well, to actually shine and be as radiant and amazing as we're capable of being.

• 33:59Lewis Howes?

  You talk about breaking through upper limits and bloom.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 34:02Lewis Howes?

  What are we afraid of breaking through most?

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Well, I think it's about learning to allow in more increased happiness.

• 34:12Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  It's and and.

• 34:14Lewis Howes?

  Cause that's one of the big regrets is we don't allow ourselves to be happy.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, and and there will be contrast. I mean, there there will be pain because we we can't grow and realize our blessings if we don't have the contrast. And the contrast gives us a mirror of

• 34:28Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  of what we do.

• 34:29Lewis Howes?

  What to be grateful for.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah. But just as when life gets the hardest it's ever become for you, and you think, I cannot take any more pain. I'm at the bottom here. This is it. I cannot take any more pain. It's the same at the top. We get up to a certain point and we don't know how to allow in more joy or more happiness. And so it's a process, a layer by layer process to chip away at those upper limits and say, actually, I'm allowed to be this happy. It doesn't matter how I'm perceived if I'm walking down the street skipping with my six year old.

• 35:05Lewis Howes?

  Be goofy, yeah.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, goofy is a good word, goofy. It doesn't matter how people see me because more often than not, people laughing, you know, there's some level of other observers are sort of wishing they could do that themselves.

• 35:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that doesn't matter anyway because you don't care because you're just being goofy and.

• 35:22Lewis Howes?

  And they're gonna die, I'm gonna die, so let's just enjoy our lives.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  I know, and we're all so

• 35:28Speaker 01

  beautiful and broken and fragile and amazing and brilliant. We've got all of that within us. But it takes a lot of courage to actually let it through.

• 35:37Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Who are the most courageous people that you worked with during this eight year time?

• 35:43Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 35:44Lewis Howes?

  Did you see people become more courageous or?

• 35:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably a patient I I write about Rosemary. She um she had been in a physically violent marriage when she was younger. She's from a different generation entirely, so she stayed within that for the sake of the family. And then eventually she divorced and it was a scandal, complete scandal to her family. And so she never married again, never had another relationship and just worked her way up the corporate ladder in the times when no women were working their way up the corporate ladder. And she. Dead, she didn't realise that she deserved happiness and she she was an ogre to work with to start with. She was shocking and um really bossy, like like.

• 36:32Lewis Howes?

  Mean.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Mean, cruel, personal, yeah, really, uh uh uh not at all pleasant. But she evolved over a few months and I think she's probably the most courageous because she didn't realise that she could actually be happy and that she was allowed to be happy and she had such a dry sense of humour. But I didn't even see that for the first month or so and then it started coming out and then there would be little giggles and this is a woman who told me to stop humming because I'm too happy.

• 37:04Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was just humming a song one day and stop that, you're always so happy, why you, why you like that?

• 37:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, and by the end of it, she was ridiculous and goofy and wonderful.

• 37:16Lewis Howes?

  Humming with you, yeah.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, so I would say she's probably the most courageous because she dared to give it a go.

• 37:24Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 37:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:26Lewis Howes?

  It seems like some of these individuals get to a place of acceptance and they find inner peace at the end of their life. Some of them do, some of them don't.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:35Lewis Howes?

  How do you think we can find inner peace now if we're not dying so soon?

• 37:40Speaker 01

  Again, face the fact that we're going to die. Honestly, it it changes everything. If if we as a society and as individuals could speak more about death and realise that we are going to die, then we just, it it just changes everything in terms of how sacred our time is. And so it gives you courage, it just, well, it has, it has for me, where I just think I'm gonna die one day, I'm not gonna live with the pain of regret. I don't have all the time in the world, I'm in my fifties now, but I could, you know, my taxi driver on the way here, his his wife died a year ago, she felt sick at eight o'clock at night, she was forty three.

• 38:24Speaker 01

  She was dead at ten o'clock at night from a heart attack and left himself and two teenage children. So, you know, I'm in my fifties, I can sort of think, oh, great, three of my grandparents lived till their nineties, I've got another forty years, I'll be right, you know. But that's not the way it works.

• 38:38Lewis Howes?

  It could be any day.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  It can be today, you know, you could be the last lovely face I see, you know, we don't know.

• 38:44Lewis Howes?

  Hopefully you wouldn't regret that.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  But we don't know and we need to, we really need to see that time is a gift. It's, it's a resource that is decreasing every single moment that we're alive. We don't have all the time in the world to follow our dreams, to tell people we love how we feel, to honor our own heart, to shine, to be who we're here to be. We don't have all the time in the world. We're, we're on limited time that's running out.

• 39:15Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  And in a way, that's, that can be terrifying and I don't mean to be like a doomsday person, but that's the guts of it. That's the truth, that we are on limited time. And the more you can truly incorporate that into your way of thinking, the more it frees you.

• 39:31Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:32Lewis Howes?

  Is there anything that you aren't doing that you know you should be doing? Through these regrets and all these lessons you've learned, is there? Are you not being kind to yourself? Are you not, you know, doing what you really wanna do? Or is there anything that you're still not doing personally?

• 39:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:49Lewis Howes?

  Even though you know these are the main things?

• 39:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. I think as a parent, that's my biggest lesson in self-kindness now because at the end of each day, I can think of things every single day that I wish I had have done better.

• 40:02Lewis Howes?

  You did wrong. Like I'm a bad parent. I did this wrong. I think every parent feels that way, right?

• 40:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, am I screwing up my child, you know, all that sort of thing? And, and then I stop and listen to her, speaking to her friends and saying, "Oh, it's okay. It's just the way it is. You've got to be kind, you know." And I hear my words coming out in a six-year-old conversation and I think, "Actually, Mama, you're doing a really good job."

• 40:26Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's cool.

• 40:27Speaker 01

  And so for me, that's probably one of my biggest lessons to forgive myself on a daily basis and understand that mistakes are a part of life. And I teach this to my daughter all the time. Um, it's human to make mistakes and it's only through mistakes that we learn.

• 40:45Lewis Howes?

  That's it?

• 40:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:46Lewis Howes?

  You don't learn from all the successes?

• 40:48Speaker 01

  No.

• 40:48Lewis Howes?

  You learn from the mistakes, the losses, whatever it may be?

• 40:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. And other people may tell you stuff, but you'll remember more from your own mistakes.

• 40:57Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm. Who do you think now is the most important people for you to listen to, to get wisdom?

• 41:05Speaker 01

  It's not a person, it's nature.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I find that nature is my biggest teacher and my daughter, or any child.

• 41:15Lewis Howes?

  She's a force of nature.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  She is a force, eh, well done. She is a force of nature, absolutely, holy dooly.

• 41:23Lewis Howes?

  What does nature teach you when you listen to it?

• 41:26Speaker 01

  Well, it just shows me to let go, that things, like you sit by a creek and you see that the water's gonna get stuck in some parts, it's going to flow in other parts. And it just teaches you about everything about life. You see a leaf falling, okay, it's falling but it's twirling, it doesn't know where it lands, but it's not resisting. Or the wind blowing a breeze on your face, it's like, okay, there's gentleness, or there's, it might be a gentle breeze or a gale-force wind, and life is like that. I think more than anything, it teaches me surrender and trust, just to know that it's actually all unfolding perfectly if I don't become that boulder that stands in the way

• 42:07Speaker 01

  of it, and if I just get out of my own way, yeah.

• 42:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, allowing it, not resisting.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah.

• 42:17Lewis Howes?

  To what's happening in life.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  Yes. There's a song that I wrote on my second album, and there's a line in it that says, "What you want wants you to, but get out of your own way and let it come through." You know, and I think that that is probably what nature teaches me again and again, that I've been trying too hard, and that there's a natural flow for things, and it knows perfectly how to unfold. I've gotta do my bits to support it, but then I've gotta get out of the way.

• 42:47Lewis Howes?

  Let it flow, I like that. Huh. How's your relationship with vulnerability changed over the years?

• 42:54Speaker 01

  We've become friends, yeah.

• 42:57Lewis Howes?

  You've embraced it?

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Yes, I actually find it as... Well, it's very freeing, but more than anything, it's it's a gift to incorporate it into your being. So the more you practice it again, you get better with the practice.

• 43:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  So the more vulnerable I've learnt to be through, even through writing my books to strangers, not knowing how they're going to be perceived at all, or which is much harder, being vulnerable to people that you care about and you love. That's that's harder than writing a book to strangers, I think. You just get better with practice. And so for me, it's a part of who I am now. And it's fine to be vulnerable. It's fine to be broken. It's fine to not be perfect because we're all the same. And if some of us don't dare to give that example, how are those without the courage going to find the courage to do so?

• 43:43Lewis Howes?

  That's true. You've got to lead with vulnerability.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 43:47Lewis Howes?

  Um, and what do you do now when you feel overwhelmed?

• 43:52Speaker 01

  Well, I'm I'm a meditator, so I I meditate. That's almost always my first go to. I ride a push bike a lot and it's only through being sick with rheumatoid arthritis that I ended up on a push bike because I couldn't do the long distance walking that I used to do. And now I love riding my bike.

• 44:12Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  So if I'm overwhelmed, more than anything, I'd probably just go for a ride on my bike.

• 44:17Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:17Lewis Howes?

  Let the stress out, let the worry out.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, get some movement in. And and most of the rides I do are beside rivers and creeks and stuff. So it's very beautiful.

• 44:27Lewis Howes?

  Nature and movement.

• 44:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 44:29Lewis Howes?

  Two powerful things.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  Can't go wrong.

• 44:32Lewis Howes?

  This is a question I ask for everyone at the end called the three truths.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 44:37Lewis Howes?

  So imagine it is your last day. You, in the future sometime, you get to choose the day and you leave this earth when you want to.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  You're right.

• 44:47Lewis Howes?

  You've achieved everything you want. You've seen your daughter grow up in the way you want to see. And everything's happened the way that it's supposed to.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Okay, so you're ready to go.

• 44:55Lewis Howes?

  You're ready to go. You're not regretting anything.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 44:58Lewis Howes?

  You've you've lived, you've lived your work like some of us struggle doing sometimes, right? You've written many other books. You've done everything you want to do. Everything you want to do just happened. But for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your work with you. So no one has access anymore to the work. You've taken it with you. But you got to write down three final truths. The lessons that you know to be true about life that you would share with everyone. And this is all they would have access to.

• 45:22Speaker 01

  That legacy, just three things.

• 45:24Lewis Howes?

  Three truths.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:25Lewis Howes?

  And they wouldn't have this anymore or anything else, your music, it would go with you.

• 45:31Lewis Howes?

  But this is what they would have. It would stay forever.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 45:33Lewis Howes?

  What would you say are your three truths?

• 45:36Speaker 01

  I'd say

• 45:39Speaker 01

  if you've done your best, then there's no reason for regret. Because that's, that's all you can do.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  I'd say that if you're lost, go and hang out in nature. If you're hanging out in nature and you're still lost, double the time that you're spending in nature.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  And I would say that courage is always rewarded.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  It's not usually rewarded in the way that we expect or might try and dictate. But in my experience, courage is always rewarded.

• 46:14Lewis Howes?

  Wow. I don't think I've heard those three. Those are good. I like those. I like those. It's a great truth. Where can we connect with you online or your site or social media?

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Yep, bronyware.com is my website.

• 46:28Lewis Howes?

  Beware.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  Beware, watch it.

• 46:31Lewis Howes?

  Beware of inspiration coming your way.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  That's right, your life's about to change.

• 46:35Lewis Howes?

  bronyware.com.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  bronyware.com.

• 46:37Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  And, you know, I have a six-week online course, which is about creating a regret-free life. So putting all these tools into place.

• 46:45Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  I am on social media on Facebook and Instagram, brony.wear. I'm not huge on it. Well, just because it's not a language that's natural to me. And part of living a regret-free life means when I'm there, I'm completely there and present and authentic. But I'm not going to post because something's expected of me or because that's the system or whatever. I have a very personal and loving relationship with my audience. But considering my book's reached a million people. It doesn't necessarily reflect in social media.

• 47:18Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 47:18Speaker 01

  But yeah, Bronnie Ware, I'm there.

• 47:20Lewis Howes?

  Bronnie dot ware.

• 47:21Speaker 01

  And Bronnie dot ware.

• 47:22Lewis Howes?

  On Instagram and Facebook.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  Yes, and Facebook.

• 47:24Lewis Howes?

  Twitter as well.

• 47:25Speaker 01

  No, I never got around to that.

• 47:26Lewis Howes?

  Never got around to it. No worries.

• 47:27Speaker 01

  No, it wasn't visually nice enough for me.

• 47:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, now you can add photos and videos, but...

• 47:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I don't want to spend any more time online.

• 47:34Lewis Howes?

  I hear you.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:36Lewis Howes?

  I hear you. Awesome. Make sure you guys check out the book, the new book, it's called Bloom. Make sure you guys check this out. I like this format a lot because it's quicker chapters to read and like more powerful lessons quickly. So for me, I like that, but also the top five regrets of the dying. If you guys don't have this, I'm assuming most of you do. Go get this. Powerful stuff. Check out the website, social media, course, all those things. I want to acknowledge you Bronnie for doing the hard things because I think the life that you've had, the work that you've been through, I don't think most people would choose. But because you chose to do those things and serve people when they were dying and also continue to write about their legacy.

• 48:19Lewis Howes?

  It's impacting a lot of people today who maybe have more time.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:23Lewis Howes?

  So I really acknowledge you for going through all of it and for being vulnerable with your daughter, with the challenges you've had with your health and for continually opening up.

• 48:34Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you, Lewis. And thank you for what you're doing in the world. My goodness, you bring so much heart to your work.

• 48:41Lewis Howes?

  I do my best.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 48:43Lewis Howes?

  That's my non-regret is I do my best, so thank you. My final question for you is what's your definition of greatness?

• 48:51Speaker 01

  Living the life that makes the most sense to you, regardless of how you're perceived by others.

• 48:58Lewis Howes?

  Bronnie Ware, thank you so much.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  My pleasure.

• 49:00Lewis Howes?

  Appreciate it. Appreciate you.

• 49:06Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, my friends. Powerful interview and insights with Bronnie Ware. Make sure to share this with your friends. LewisHowes.com/737. As we get closer to the end of the year, my next interview and episode, full-length episode, will be me interviewing myself, doing a solo round, talking about... The greatest lessons for me of 2018, the greatest lessons of the year for me, the biggest regrets that I have, the things I'm gonna be looking forward to for for next year. And I want to share it all with you. I want to share what I've learned, what's working well, what's not working well, business, life, health, relationships, all that good stuff. So stay tuned for that episode. If this is your first time here,

• 49:47Lewis Howes?

  make sure to subscribe. Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, we come out with the most powerful interviews and insights to help you unlock your inner greatness. Brett Favre said, "You're never guaranteed about next year." People ask about what you think of next season. You have to seize the opportunities when they're right in front of you. You're at a season of your life right now. You're about to start a new season. You're about to go into your life with full energy and full impact. Life is a contact sport, my friends, and you've got to be seizing every single moment that you have. Yes, you're gonna make mistakes. Not every action you take is going to work in your favor,

• 50:30Lewis Howes?

  but it will end up working in your favor when you reflect on it, when you learn, when you grow, and when you continue to move forward in the pursuit of your dreams. I love you so very much, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.