The ‘To Die List’ vs The ‘To Do List’: Proven Identity Habits to Boost Longevity

Karen Salmansohn [00:00:00]:
You could check off everything on your to do list every day and get to the end of your life and feel like you wasted your life.

Nick Urban [00:00:08]:
You’re listening to High Performance Longevity, the show exploring a better path to optimal health for those daring to live as an outlier in a world of averages. I’m your host Nick Urban, bioharmonizer, performance coach, and lifelong student of both modern science and ancestral wisdom. Each week we decode the tools, tactics and timeless principles to help you optimize your mind, body and performance span. Things you won’t find on Google or in your AI tool of choice. From cutting edge biohacks to grounded lifestyle practices, you’ll walk away with actionable insights to look, feel and perform at your best across all of life’s domains.

Karen Salmansohn [00:00:58]:
What would change if you wrote your own eulogy today? That’s right, Eulogy. Our guest this week invites us to confront mortality not as fear, but fuel. She shares how to die lists, jars of marbles and identity based habits create urgency to live with purpose and finally, stop wasting time on the things that don’t matter. Behavior change is the root of health and what more potent impetus to change than pondering and confronting your own mortality on this journey with us is Karen Salmanson. She is a best selling author and behavior change expert known for blending psychology, neuroscience and humor to help people live with greater intention. She’s previously appeared on Oprah and in Psychology Today and today we’re discussing her newest book called you’re to Die for Life. If you find this conversation interesting, you can check out the website for her book at YourTodieForLife.com, which will be in the show notes for this episode. You can find [email protected] the number 219.

Karen Salmansohn [00:02:14]:
If you have some self sabotaging behaviors or you’re living on autopilot or you just want to install some newer, healthier behaviors, this episode is for you. As always, let me know your thoughts in the show notes on Outlier or in the comments on the YouTube version of this podcast. Thanks for tuning in.

Nick Urban [00:02:33]:
Now let’s get started. Karen, welcome to the podcast.

Karen Salmansohn [00:02:35]:
Oh, it’s great to be here. I’m excited.

Nick Urban [00:02:37]:
Yeah, me too. Because today we’re going to be discussing the often neglected side of health performance longevity, really the overall life experience. And we all have most of the information that we need available to us. The basic tenets of health and wellness are all pretty simple, but there’s a big gap between the knowledge and the implementation, the practice, the daily rituals. So today we’re Going to dive into your work and your new book around this specifically, which has a catchy name of your To Die for Life. Break that down for me. How did you end up writing this book and what is inside of it?

Karen Salmansohn [00:03:17]:
Okay, well, I have two ways to answer that. I have the quirky, humorous way and then I have the poignant, slightly sad, heartfelt way. So I’m going to begin with the poignant, humorous so people don’t run off because I’m talking about a sad story. But I say that I didn’t write this book because I had a near death experience. I wrote this book because I had a near life experience. And if your listeners have never heard of a near life experience, that’s because I made up the term, but they will definitely recognize it when I describe what it is. A near life experience is when you’re going through life but you’re kind of on autopilot. A lot of us spend a lot of time on the phone.

Karen Salmansohn [00:04:01]:
We’re scrolling, you know, we’re not fully in our life. We’re near life or life at Jade sand or you’re in like a dinner with a loved one, but your mind is on something you’re future projecting, worrying about the future or something you’re obsessing about or regret from the past. So again, you’re not fully in your life. You’re having a near life experience. And I woke up to my near life experience because of the other reason why I wrote the book. When my dad died and his death was like a big wake up call for me that, well, that there is a thing called death. Because it’s amazing. We, we know it, but we don’t like fully know it.

Karen Salmansohn [00:04:49]:
We, I mean it’s not everybody has this denial of death. It’s kind of built into us. Like it’s because of something called terror management. And if we all walked around every day thinking I’m going to die, but we were like focusing on the, the anxiety of it, then it would be hard to function. But if you focus on that as sort of like a reminder to enjoy the now, then you can, it actually has the opposite effect. Mortality awareness is not morbid, it’s motivating. It lights a fire under you to not waste your time. Mortality awareness creates urgency and then urgency creates action.

Karen Salmansohn [00:05:31]:
And it can know, kind of zigzag around and become a good thing in your life.

Nick Urban [00:05:35]:
Do you know what the difference is? Some people are paralyzed by the idea of mortality and they, it, I guess detracts from their life versus others. They can have that reframe where they see it as an opportunity, like a little thing in the back of their mind that they can use as motivation instead.

Karen Salmansohn [00:05:53]:
Well, it’s. If you focus. Well, in the book, I explain to people that when you realize that there’s a future you out there, that you’re more likely to behave in a way that will make future you happy. And they’ve done studies on this. There is one study I mentioned in the book which I thought was kind of interesting. They did this face aging app on a group of people where they actually had to look at themselves and see themselves as 90 year old men. And they did this on a reoccurring basis. And then afterwards they checked back with them and they started to save their money better because they realized there is a future me out more.

Karen Salmansohn [00:06:38]:
And I don’t want future me to be pissed off at current me. So what I’ve done is I’ve written my own eulogy with this in mind. But I’m not focusing on the quite. I’m focusing on my death, but I’m focusing on how I want to feel on my deathbed. If I’m proud of my life, what do I need to do to become aspirational eulogy me. And then I look at current me and I see if there’s a gap. And then I create bridge habits to get current me to aspirational eulogy me. I have a whole system for this, a proprietary system that requires writing what I call a daily to die list, which is different than a to do list.

Karen Salmansohn [00:07:27]:
And I can explain why if you want.

Nick Urban [00:07:30]:
Yeah, we’ll get into that. But first, when you’re writing your eulogy, which is an interesting exercise in itself because it seems like it’s a. It’s a destination. And reverse engineering from where you want that destination to be helps you fill in the gaps with your to die list and the other things that are between where you currently are and that destination.

Karen Salmansohn [00:07:51]:
Yes. And in my book I help people to write their eulogies because a lot of people might find that like a little bit scary. So I made it easier for them. I’ve created a fill in the blank template, sort of like Mad Libs. And you fill in the blanks and then that helps you to like get clearer on what you want your mission for life to be. And I also explain some theories from Stoicism and Aristotle, who’s my favorite philosopher, Aristotle, and I explain what he says your end goal for life should be. And Aristotle is also part of the reason why I wrote this book because I’m kind of a research geek. And when I was doing research for other books, I wound up discovering Aristotle’s philosophies.

Karen Salmansohn [00:08:40]:
And I really resonated with them so much so I named my son Ari as a wink Aristotle. So I even have a tattoo on my arm that says Ari, which is my son’s name. I didn’t name him Aristotle. I named him Ari. I didn’t think that would go over so well in the playground in order to be Aristotle. So Aristotle says that you should begin every project with the ends in mind, Everything from small projects like a bake sale to that gigantic project called your life. And then you should think about how you want to feel at the end of that project and then reverse engineer it. And he also said that you don’t know if you’ve lived a good life until you’re on your deathbed, and so you should think about what you want your end goal for life to be.

Karen Salmansohn [00:09:28]:
And he said that no matter who you are in this world, we all have the same end goal for our lives, whether you’re from Timbuktu, Toronto, Toledo, no matter how different you are, different eras of, you know, centuries. And this goal for life is to learn lessons that help you to grow into your best possible self. He thought that’s why we’re here. And back in his day, he thought the reason why so many people were unhappy, and this applies to actually today, too. He said that people confuse pleasure for happiness. And he goes into this in more depth, which I also write about. But he says that they wind up having the wrong end goal for their lives. They think the purpose of their life is become the richest person on this planet or the sexiest girl on this planet, or have the most YouTube followers, the most podcast downloads on the planet, you know, and he said that if you get to your end of your life and you made that your end goal, then you’re going to be mightily disappointed because you’re going to realize you chased the wrong rabbits, that it’s always about learning habits, learning new experiences, learning about yourself.

Karen Salmansohn [00:10:42]:
He actually calls it the education of the soul. And if you’re not into soul in that word itself doesn’t resonate, you know, the education of your core self, you know, to become your best possible self. And, you know, in Aristotle’s days, he talked a lot about the soul. And in some ways, I’m paraphrasing for Aristotle. Aristotle thought the soul is your G spot for happiness. He didn’t actually write that, but if he were here today, he’d be like, you know, but, Karen, that is kind of what I thought. It’s a little more memorable, but it’s still what Aristotle was saying, that we really have to think about our soul and not so much about our ego and status, wealth, fame, you, beauty, all of those things. So this book reminds you to focus on the right things in your life.

Karen Salmansohn [00:11:34]:
And writing your eulogy helps you to focus on your right thing. Because the eulogy should not be like you’re reading out loud your LinkedIn profile. You know, it has to have more depth and meaning.

Nick Urban [00:11:46]:
I like what you’re saying too, about not just what you accomplished, the quantifiable, objective things that you accomplished, but also the subjective way you feel at the end of your life, too, because you’re going to have the most impressive resume on the planet. But if you feel bad about it, what is the point?

Karen Salmansohn [00:12:04]:
Right? Right. And that’s why we put so much value on writing a to do list and having productivity. We are like, we. We’re a culture that worships productivity. But you could check off everything on your to do list every day and get to the end of your life and feel like you wasted your life. Because the purpose of life is not a lot of things that have to do with busyness and status and productivity. It’s about more intangible things like meaningful relationships, meaningful experiences. And those things don’t wind up on a to do list most of the time.

Karen Salmansohn [00:12:43]:
And that’s why I have people right there to die listen, which is different than a to do list. And those are the things that when you’re at the end of your life, you’re going to be glad you did the things on your to die list.

Nick Urban [00:12:56]:
Yeah. So for someone who, like me, I actually get a lot of enjoyment in the moment and right after when I check off my entire to do list for the day. And I also look back on experiences that were great with friends, with family, different things that are not on my to do list per se. But how do you reconcile that? Or how do you like. Because, like, being productive also causes different neurological changes and neurotransmitter releases and everything that are beneficial in terms of, like, the way you feel, motivation, happiness, all these things. But then it’s not the end all, be all. So do you look at. Does your system incorporate both.

Karen Salmansohn [00:13:33]:
Yes. Yes. And Aristotle, he was one of the first in, you know, the land of stoicism to, to talk about everything in moderation. So he actually was not approved. He was like you know, go ahead, have some sexy times, you know. He was also about wealth. He wrote a lot about how you need some wealth to get things in your life. You know, he wasn’t really like extreme.

Karen Salmansohn [00:14:00]:
He actually, he said everything in moderation, even kindness. He said if you take anything to an extreme, because if you take kindness to an extreme, then you could be like a doormat, you know, so everything in moderation. So productivity can grow you to a certain degree, but if you are in what’s called beast mode, then you might be missing out on some of the meaning and the purpose of your life and some of the emotional connection or being fully present with your loved ones. So he’s, he’s really about everything in moderation. And the way, way that I have people do this, I, I’m actually a behavioral change expert from before this. I’ve written a bunch of other books that have to do with behavioral change. So one of the things that I recommend people do, and this is how you write your to die list, is to create what’s called identity based habits. And I’ll explain this further.

Karen Salmansohn [00:14:59]:
This is. Okay, I’ll explain it this way first. When you write your to do, when you write your eulogy, the blanks that I have in the eulogy, a lot of them are core values. So it’s a little spoiler alert there for your listeners. But you can still read the book doesn’t give everything away. And that’s because to become your best possible self, to live a life, to die for life, you have to be your best possible self. And that means embracing core values. But sometimes we, we don’t think about them on a daily basis.

Karen Salmansohn [00:15:35]:
So I’m asking people to think about that more for a bunch of reasons. One of them is when you think about your identity and attach it to a habit, you’re more likely to do the habit. Identity is the puppet master of your habit. And there’s lots of studies about this. They did one study where they were trying to encourage people to vote and they had two groups. One group, they had the people identify with the idea of being a voter, getting excited seeing their identity. I am a voter. Then the other group, they just use clever little taglines and stuff like, hey, vote, damn it, or whatever it is.

Karen Salmansohn [00:16:19]:
The people that they had create identities around voting wound up having a far greater voter turnout than the ones that they just used, you know, fancy taglines with. And we do it ourselves, even if we’re not knowing it. Our identity creates our destiny. If you think I am sloppy, you’re going to do the habits of a sloppy person. If you think I am neat, you’re going to do habits of a neat person. So identity is destiny. So what I have people do is figure out what core values they need to embrace to live a to die for life. So I have a journaling exercise, which you can do a couple of ways.

Karen Salmansohn [00:17:04]:
You can look at your eulogy, but you don’t have to write your own eulogy if somebody out there doesn’t want to. The book still works and my ideas still work. You think to yourself, who do I need to become to get everything I want in my life? Or who do I need to become too? And then you think about something you want that’s sort of in your current state sphere. Who do I need to become to have the best relationship with my partner? Who do I need to become to stop fighting with my child? Who do I need to become to finish that novel? Who do I need to become to be a top podcast host? You know, and then you work backwards and you think about the core values that you need, and you might realize you’re not doing some of those core values. I need to be loving, I need to be an active listener. I need to be disciplined, I need to be strong, I need to be brave, I need to be more authentic, you know, whatever it is. And then you write it down with the following template. I am.

Karen Salmansohn [00:18:06]:
And so I do. So, for example, a couple of months ago, one of my good friends Danielle was having a birthday party and she lives in Connecticut and I live in New York, and. And I’ve lived here for so long that my driver’s license has expired and I never got it renewed. And when she invited me to her birthday party, I thought, oh, I have to find a way to get to Connecticut. And there was some part of me that was like, ah, but because from writing my eulogy, I know that meaningful friendships and being there for my friends is very important to me for my eulogy. And I wrote down on my to die list, I am a loving person. And so I find a way to get to Connecticut for Danielle’s birthday. And what happens is when you attach a core value to this, it creates cognitive dissonance.

Karen Salmansohn [00:19:02]:
If you don’t do it right and I don’t. If you don’t know what cognitive dissonance, you could probably figure it out intuitively what I mean by that. You feel uncomfortable. You feel a conflict within yourself. Like, wait, I’m not going to not find a way to go to Connecticut, but I value Being a loving person and then it kind of works as an accountability buddy to get you to figure out how to do that thing. So whenever you attach core value to a habit, you’re creating what’s called an identity based statement and you’re more likely to do it. And these are the types of things you write down on your to die list.

Nick Urban [00:19:44]:
So are you always attaching one core habit to one action or are you ever saying I’m this, I am that and I’m also that. So I do this and that and that.

Karen Salmansohn [00:19:53]:
Well, I do use more than one core value and more than one im and so I do statement in a day and I like to mix them up. Sort of like if you go to the gym, you might do legs one day and arms the other day or you know, you might do the running machine. You want to sort of make sure you’re working on all aspects of you and the same with your core values. But I only do one per identity based statement. So but I might the next day if I didn’t do something, I might think, well, maybe I need to bring out a different core value. I, I mean I did the loving. Finding a way to Danielle’s birthday party worked, but let’s say it didn’t. I might think I am a persistent person and so I find a way to get to Danielle’s birthday party.

Karen Salmansohn [00:20:41]:
Because let’s say I tried and gave up, I would just try to resolve it with a different core value. Because this is what I firmly believe. All the problems in your life could be solved by embracing core values more strongly. Because why didn’t I find a way? I wasn’t persistent enough. You know, as you sort of think back, who do I need to become to find a way to Danielle’s birthday party? So you know, you could find different ways in and convince yourself into that.

Nick Urban [00:21:14]:
Yeah. It seems to me that this is the additive side. Like who am I going to become? What about the internal self talk we have? I mean you alluded to this earlier about like I am this. So I do that and it’s a habit or behavior that’s not serving us. It’s a deserving habit. Are you looking at those also when you’re creating yours, so you’re reducing like the friction or drag against becoming the person you want to become.

Karen Salmansohn [00:21:37]:
Great question, great question. I have a couple of things with that because I’ve tried this on myself too. So I’ve test driven this and I’m like, like sometimes if, I mean I am loving is one that I would want to be and think I am. So there’s. But there are some that I’m like, damn it, am I really that core value? Like, I don’t know what it is, but I’ll think of one and I’ll be vulnerable and share it with you. But. But there’s a couple of ways in to get it to work. So one is if you feel you’re not that thing, you think of other times you were that thing.

Karen Salmansohn [00:22:11]:
So let’s say it’s the loving one or even the organized one. Like, maybe that’s one of my weaknesses. You know, I would think of times when I was organized. You go, oh, I’ve been organized. I did this, I did this, I did this. Am and. Or I value. And you can even word it, I value being organized.

Karen Salmansohn [00:22:30]:
So that’s another way in. But to think back of proof to it. But there’s another sentence that I use. The old me used to not be organized. The new me is organized. And then that helps me to feel like it’s. There’s not too much resistance to it, and I get excited about that new identity. But here’s a story that I think will really help you to understand how to use core values, even if you feel you’re not that core value yet.

Karen Salmansohn [00:23:03]:
And this is one I share about in the book. I used to work out all the time. Like, before my son was born, like, even so much, I was like a gym rat. I was totally gym rat. And then after my son was born, it got a little bit harder, and I had what I called my pregnancy weight up until My son was 3 years old. And at that point, I realized, this is not my pregnancy weight. This is my I eat too much crappy food weight, and I’m lying to myself. So I was thinking about this and wanting to lose my I eat too much crappy food weight.

Karen Salmansohn [00:23:41]:
And that day, I was on the phone, or zoom. This was a while ago, so it might not have been zoom yet with my publishing house. And we were working on a book that had photographs and illustrations in it. And I noticed when they sent me over the spec pages, I could see the color coming through on the other side. And I didn’t like that. I was like, we need thicker paper. You know, maybe if it’s toothier, and could we try the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I’m making suggestions.

Karen Salmansohn [00:24:14]:
And I thought to myself, you know, I am a very discerning person in so many areas of my life. I’m discerning about my books with you Know, down to, like, the toothiness of the paper and, like, looking at where there’s something in a typesetting, where there’s something called widows, where there’s just a single word on a line and it doesn’t look as good in the. I know this from my advertising days. We call them widows. And so I would always read, let’s edit the sentence so we don’t have those, you know? So I thought to myself, I am a discerning person, but I’m not being discerning about my food, right? I’m, like, throwing cheddar cheese goldfish in my mouth, eating the rest of my son’s macaroni and cheese and everything. So I took that core value of discerning, and I said, I am a discerning person, which I was in other areas of my life. And I thought, and so I eat healthy foods. And then the next time I would look at something like cheddar cheese goldfish, I would think, no, I am a discerning person.

Karen Salmansohn [00:25:20]:
And it really helped me. It’s amazing. This single word helped me lose, like, £20. I kept looking at things because I valued that is my identity that, and I wanted to be that and embrace it further. And then once you use a core value and you write it down enough times, it kind of has a ripple effect into other areas of your life. You start to maybe not spend as much money. I’m a discerning person, and you’re not even thinking that thought. Like, you didn’t write that one down, but because the more you relate to a core value, the more you’re naturally wanting to do other habits relating to that core value in a organic, just way.

Karen Salmansohn [00:26:04]:
The way that’s not even a conscious thought, it starts to become subconscious.

Nick Urban [00:26:09]:
Yeah, okay. You mentioned writing that down, and since you said it twice just now, I assume that writing it down is important for these. Or is it enough to just keep it in memory?

Karen Salmansohn [00:26:20]:
You have to write it down. Thank you for bringing that up. You’re asking very good questions here. I’m a big believer in writing things down, and I’m also a big believer in scheduling it. And I’m also a big believer in trying to make things feel fun. Because next to the topic of death, which is very uncomfortable for people, the competition to discomfort is the idea of change. I think change. I don’t know which scares people more, death or change.

Karen Salmansohn [00:26:51]:
I try to make change less scary for people. I try to make it fun. I schedule things, and then I connect my Google calendar to my Alexa in my office area. And I have Alexa remind me to do things, because the more senses I use, auditory as well as visual, the better. Plus I write it down in a way that feels fun, a way that excites me, so I’m more likely to do it. So I would write like, I’m a loving person. And so I find a way to Danielle’s birthday party and we’re gonna. I forgot what I wrote.

Karen Salmansohn [00:27:35]:
But I make it fun. I remind myself why it’s fun and then I’m more likely to do it. So I have Alexa reminding me and then I have it in my Google calendar. So I schedule everything I see.

Nick Urban [00:27:46]:
So when you say you schedule it, you mean that you schedule a reminder to, like, make sure you’re not just writing it down once and then it is out of sight, out of memory for the rest of the day or.

Karen Salmansohn [00:27:57]:
Perhaps longer until you do it. I schedule it. And sometimes the more obvious about scheduling it, like, for example, my dad passed away, My mom is still thankfully very alive, and she’s a little spitfire. So I remind myself I am a loving person. And so I call my mother three days a week. But I actually write it into the calendar. I am a loving person. So I call my mother 11am Sunday, I call my mother Tuesday, 6:30pm I schedule it because otherwise these things might not happen.

Karen Salmansohn [00:28:32]:
We develop all kinds of blame excuses for things, and you know, we do think to ourselves, like, oh, I just, I didn’t have enough time. Which is sort of like the adults version of the dog ate my homework. I didn’t have enough time. So you have to make enough time to do these things.

Nick Urban [00:28:49]:
How important is the specificity in the action? Because in your example previously, you mentioned that you’re a discerning person, so you also eat clean. And is it not enough just to say, I’m a discerning person. So I apply that, my discernment to everywhere in my life. Or is it better to have it around the specific behavior that you want to change?

Karen Salmansohn [00:29:09]:
I think it’s better to be specific and do one thing at a time and then it naturally will start to leak into other areas. And eventually you could just think the word discerning. And like, if something’s coming up, you got discerning. Like it could help you because it’s like shorthand almost at a certain point. But I start off linking it to one habit that I want to fix and change.

Nick Urban [00:29:36]:
Okay, so I was playing pickleball with a man yesterday, and he said specifically that he wanted to lose £20. He’d been trying for a long time and hadn’t been able to, and there was an opportunity there. He said he was thinking about going on the GLP1s, like Ozempic, but like, there’s obviously the first opportunity to try the natural behavior change. How would you recommend that? I mean, obviously you don’t know his specifics, but like, what would be a potential thing that he could use or different options he could use to create a narrative that would be supporting his journey, whether or not he decides to go for other interventions.

Karen Salmansohn [00:30:12]:
Ultimately, I would definitely. I would. I work with clients like that. I actually sell a course on my website called Stop Emotional Eating and I coach people. But to help him to be really powerful, I’d have to know what his motivations are and dangle them a little bit. So, for example, I am a late in life mom and I have other things that I do besides discerning. The discerning thing worked for me because I realized that’s something that I truly value. It’s like one of my top core values.

Karen Salmansohn [00:30:47]:
But I’m a late in life mom and I. I think about dancing at my son’s wedding. So I want to be healthy to dance at my son’s wedding. So you have to figure out what people’s. And you also have to figure out what’s creating the. In some cases for something like that, at least for stop emotional. To stop emotional eating. Why is he emotionally eating or why is he overeating? So I want to work with that as well, you know, for that particular problem, which is usually what’s called a maladaptive coping mechanism.

Nick Urban [00:31:25]:
Yeah, I think part of the difficulty here is that in order for these to be as effective as possible, the people have to be aware of what’s causing the maladaptive behavior in the first place. And if they’re aware of that, then they’re already conscious of it and they can work on it. But a lot of times it’s like, this is the outcome. I can’t figure out what it is that’s happening that’s getting me here. Therefore, I don’t know how to create a new narrative around it because I don’t really have enough clarity around the issue to begin with.

Karen Salmansohn [00:31:53]:
Well, if he links it. Another way that writing a eulogy helps you to eat healthier is you get excited about all the things you want to accomplish in your life and you want to live longer. And also having energy to do those things is usually a thing to get excited. Something has to be greater Than whatever. Usually there’s sometimes a secondary gain. Like if somebody. Sometimes it would be, you know, not always. It depends on each person.

Karen Salmansohn [00:32:21]:
I’m almost afraid even a doctor would say we, I need more information. So. But there is power. With that said, core values are very, very powerful. If I figure it out, what was most important to him and linked it to that core value for him, maybe. And I don’t. Again, I might be wrong here, but if it’s being strong, I am a strong person. I am a disciplined person.

Karen Salmansohn [00:32:53]:
It could be some different word that we could attach to it and he could start to loosen up the hold of some of his subconscious negative beliefs just by, you know, it’s the stick or the carrot. If you get somebody excited about becoming something, then that can work. Or if you go in and kind of tweak with some of the underlying subconscious, that could work. But just having the true excitement about something could override some of the negative programming in your mind.

Nick Urban [00:33:26]:
Yeah. So it’s understanding like a bigger picture, like what drives you, what lights you up, makes you excited and then perhaps even like combining them. I’m not sure that’s possible. Like the carrot and the stick, like the reward and like the potential consequences if you don’t make that shift and being aware of that when you’re thinking through the statement, would that be a good solution?

Karen Salmansohn [00:33:44]:
Yeah. And I’m going to tell you something else. One of the best motivations to lose weight is mortality awareness. Because the other thing that helped me to lose my pregnancy weight, which was really my I eat too much crappy food weight, was also was thinking about high cholesterol and I don’t want to die, I want to dance at my son’s wedding. So, you know, if somebody has a health scare, that works. And I feel that even just reminding yourself, like if you have a parent that died early, you know, things like that, that’s why people often finally lose the weight when they have a health scare. So that’s the power of mortality awareness.

Nick Urban [00:34:32]:
Yeah, no health scare required. If you’re aware of your own mortality to begin with and then you can reverse engineer from there so that you don’t have that. That scare. Yeah, I know you’re in your kitchen right now. And speaking of scares and mortality, you have a jar or two jars next to you. Will you explain what that is and why you do it?

Karen Salmansohn [00:34:52]:
Sure, sure. For those that can see, I’ll bring them over here. These are here. I’ll hold this one up first. Better not drop it. This represents how Many months I have left to live, if I live to 100, because I promised my son I would do everything possible to live to 100. He asked me to live to 200, but I bargained him down and he accepted counteroffer. So I started this a while ago.

Karen Salmansohn [00:35:24]:
This is how many months I’ve been doing this practice for. And what I. And I write about this in my book, and I wrote about this also on my substack, that what you do is for me, I chose 100. And I do recommend people think positively like that. Think about how what you believe your perceived age will be when you pass and then count how many months from where you are now to that age. So for me, I’m 64, and I’m going to be 65 in August, actually. So you can also do this. I did this.

Karen Salmansohn [00:36:07]:
Oh, my gosh, this is such a wake up call. Math is such a stark reality about how short our lives are. I only have 26 summers left in my life. When you put that number on it, it’s like, oh, man, I better make this summer count. Right? So I forgot now how many marbles are in this jar? I think I. When I originally started, it was 473marbles at whatever age I started. And then I started getting rid of them. And the marbles represent.

Karen Salmansohn [00:36:41]:
It’s so. It’s. It’s so powerful to see. This is how much life I have left. And then every month, I dip into the jar and I take out a marble and I look at that and I think to myself, this little piece of marble, that’s a piece of my life. That’s what I spent last month of my life. What did I spend my life on that month? And you just fold it and it’s a little piece of your life. Did I waste that piece? What did I do? And then I journal about it, and I have some questions that I ask myself.

Karen Salmansohn [00:37:14]:
And people can create their own questions. But I have some prompts in the book, too, to help people to do this exercise. And I think about the marble. The first time I did this, I must confess, I was very disappointed in myself because I’d never done the exercise before. And I thought, what did I do with Blasphemy Month? And I had trouble thinking about, like, where did that time go? It. This is. And I help my clients to create this too. It’s usually like this the first time you do it.

Karen Salmansohn [00:37:42]:
Except for now, I’m warning you. So you might go into it a little bit better, but you plunk it into the other jar. And that sound, the first time you put the first marble in, it’s like plunk. You know, it’s a little bit like, oh, my God, that’s a piece of my life in there. But the next month, you’ll be more prepared because you’re going to look at that jar and I keep it in the kitchen, so I see it all the time. And you’re going to think, what am I planning for next month? And then you start to plan more things. More things for your to die list that you can be excited about, More meaningful adventures with your loved ones, More ways that you can be of service and give back. More ways that you want to stretch yourself, be braver, be more.

Karen Salmansohn [00:38:25]:
You express yourself more. So that way, when the month comes around and you look at that little marble, you can write down a ton of things in your journal about what you did that month. So I recommend it. This has been very helpful for me. And it’s in my kitchen. I told you this before we came on. So it serves a double benefit because it’s in my kitchen. And I told my son, I want to live to 100.

Karen Salmansohn [00:38:51]:
So every time I walk into the kitchen, I’m like, do I really want another cookie? I promised him I’ll look to 100. And it’s sitting there. And also, when you’re excited about your life and you’ve created a year to die for life, you want to live a long life. You want to live as long as possible. The music in you is still going. And I believe it’s never too late to rejigger your life either, that there’s always something to be excited about at every stage and age of your life.

Nick Urban [00:39:21]:
I love the idea of having it in the kitchen where it’s readily viewable, accessible, and as a constant reminder, because I think a lot of these things can be really powerful exercises. But if you do it once and then it’s tucked away in some closet that you open every grate once in a while, it’s not gonna have the same impact on like, your day to day behaviors as if it’s somewhere where you’re constantly reminded of it.

Karen Salmansohn [00:39:45]:
Yes, yes. And if you get pretty marbles, you don’t mind having them out either. And it’s just, it’s. And after a while, the first time you do it, you might think like, oh, is that morbid? But after a while, it’s the difference, the reframe, where you get excited about how you’re going to use your marbles. And it’s not about death. And in some ways my book is not about death. It’s about life. It’s about living a meaningful life.

Karen Salmansohn [00:40:14]:
And some people, when they hear I wrote a book with the title you’re to die for life and the word die is in there, they think, oh, she’s an end of life death doula. But I’m a middle of life death doula or a beginning of life death doula. While there’s still more Runway to change what you can do in your life. And that’s where the identity based statements come in. And a lot of behavioral change tools in the book, because my background is behavioral change.

Nick Urban [00:40:43]:
How does your actual behavior change calendar look? You mentioned some of the statements being in your calendar. Are you having about like two or three of these a day or is it like 25? Like every 15 minutes you have a new alarm?

Karen Salmansohn [00:40:55]:
No, no, no, no. I think two. I have about three a day is usually what I have. I try not to repeat them, but sometimes I do repeat them if there’s something that I need to make sure if it has a time sensitive nature or something. And I like the idea of challenging myself to come up with new ones. It’s kind of fun not to do repeats. Totally. Some of them can’t be actually scheduled, so some of them I’ll just write down on a little post it note and put it up in my refrigerator.

Karen Salmansohn [00:41:26]:
I still have Alexa tell me them, so I’ll do it. So I still have a couple of things. I have Alexa reminding me to drink more water also. So throughout the day she’ll say that to me.

Nick Urban [00:41:40]:
Yeah. And then how often are you actually like or for how long? What’s the duration of these? Like every day for a week, for a month? I’m guessing it depends on the magnitude of the behavior you’re trying to change. But like, is it a. You mentioned you don’t repeat them. Does that mean at all, like every day? It’s like a synonym of what it was yesterday? Or is it like after that course is done, then you don’t repeat it?

Karen Salmansohn [00:42:01]:
Think of it sort of like a to do list. There are things that you would eventually cross off of a to do list, but there might be things that repeat, like laundry or you know, or some kind of scheduling habit that you have for your podcast that you would do, or writing copy or uploading something, but it’s not always the same thing all the time. So it’s a little like that. And, and that’s why I have people look at their eulogies to think, am I living up to everything? What does current me need to do to become aspirational eulogy me? I think of them as bridge habits, getting you from current you to aspirational eulogy you. But sometimes if I’m having a challenge in my present life, I don’t know what that would be. I would think, who do I need to become to solve this challenge? Who do I need to become to, you know, conquer something? And then I think of that and I put it on the list.

Nick Urban [00:43:04]:
So it depends on the nature of what it is that you’re working toward. There’s also like the research around it taking like 60 or 66 or 90 days to build new habits. And for things that you want to like master over the course of your life, of course it’s going to be at something that you want to stick with and become like ingrained into who you are. Do you find that like with this process those rules of thumb apply or is like the average time it takes your clients to become those new versions of themselves?

Karen Salmansohn [00:43:36]:
I will tell you this with a core value attached with an identity based statement, everything goes much faster. The adding the word discerning to the habits for me was a total game changer. It’s like completely, it’s like I’d look at that, the food and I think, no, I am discerning. And it really, for some reason, it just really sunk in. So if you find the right core value that you really is so much you, then it’s going to really help to have it happen sooner than whatever traditional behavioral change is.

Nick Urban [00:44:15]:
Yeah, I don’t even know what the traditional behavior change method is. It’s just like this is the new behavior. I’m going to anchor it to something, I’m going to make it small enough so that I can continue to do it and then just like keep repeating.

Karen Salmansohn [00:44:27]:
That until habit step. Yeah, but I also have habits that are related to, you know, how you spend your morning. And I have one in the middle of the day that I do that is a core value of strengthener, which I, I can, I can share if you want. So one day I went into my son’s room and I, I was like getting ready to give my little speech like, you gotta clean up your room. And however I said that to him that day, he answered, I’m sorry mom, I’m just not feeling it right now. Which cracked me up because I thought to myself, how many of us, when it’s time to go do something, we’re just not feeling it Right. So I thought about this, and I thought how you could start your morning sometimes, like, all gung hoo, all gung ho about your core values or about all the things on your to do list as well as your to die list. But then you have a midday integrity slump, right? It’s like, you know, or you’re so busy and everything.

Karen Salmansohn [00:45:34]:
So I thought about this and I thought, you need to create speed bumps in your day, because part of the reason why we have a midday integrity slump is that we are impulsive and reactive. Most of us do habits out of impulse, reaction, or even autopilot. So you need to have speed bumps in your day that slow you down to remind you. And so I thought about the very famous greater than sign. Do you remember the greater than sign from your math days? Yeah. A little triangle, which is greater. And wherever that y part of the triangle is, you put the thing that’s more important. Where the pointy part is, I think that’s less important.

Karen Salmansohn [00:46:23]:
So this is something that could even work for your. Your friend that’s trying to lose weight. You pause and you ask yourself, and if you have pen and paper, you could write it down because the visual reminder really helps. And even it’s tactile to write it down. Which is more important to me, which is greater than, you know, the deliciousness of a brownie in the moment or dancing at my son’s wedding, which is more important to me, which is more important to me? Or you link it to something else. Because if something even makes you kind of tired after doing it, like eating a huge snack in the middle of the day, and then you can’t get your work done, whatever it is, which is more important to me? Or if it’s going to the gym, which is more important to me, you know, an extra 30 minutes of sleep or. And then you link the exercise, something else, you know, dancing at my son’s wedding or having energy to do everything, do that, you know, write my novel or energy to do my podcast, or energy to show up at my best on my podcast. You.

Karen Salmansohn [00:47:34]:
You link it to something that is an important, you know, to die for type habit. Something that would be on your to die list. Something that might be on in your eulogy that you would have, that you wrote, you know, that I helped people with my podcast to live their best lives. So you need energy to do that. So you use the greater than sign throughout the day, and it helps you to create a speed bump so you’re not being impulsive and reactive and you’re not on autopilot. So I do that a lot. Right at that moment where I’m tempted to do something, I think about it and I pause and use this greater than sign tool.

Nick Urban [00:48:15]:
Interesting. Yeah. I could see for things that come up in a moment like that where it’d be really helpful. I could also see where for me, I’m in the middle of working and I’m like, well, on my deathbed, am I going to wish I spent more time doing this very particular thing or am I going to get more value and feel more enjoyment out of going and spending time with my friends and building those relationships? And I could see myself justifying working very short weeks by continuously doing that. But I can also see for like certain things where it would be cheating on like a diet or meal, whatever it is, where like in that moment when the acute thing comes up, doing that exercise could be really helpful to actually weigh the long term gain versus cost.

Karen Salmansohn [00:48:54]:
Yes. And that’s the other thing which is I mentioned in the book, but I thought the greater than sign was more interesting. But another thing that I mentioned in the book is how will I feel about this on my deathbed? You know, it’s a book about death, so I do pose that. But the greater than sign thing I thought was a little more, I don’t know, innovatively worded.

Nick Urban [00:49:17]:
Yeah, I like that. What are some of the things people get wrong about behavior change? Because basically who we become is a summation of a lot of our constant behaviors. And so are there things that you see people either do wrong or get wrong when it comes to behavior change?

Karen Salmansohn [00:49:34]:
Well, that’s where I’m so excited about the identity based habits because underneath a negative behavior is usually some sort of belief system. And oh, this reminds me in the book I also, I do talk about this, what I call a negative dominant belief which that can help. We repeat what we don’t repair. We repeat what we don’t repair. So I tell a story in you’re to die for life about I was out to dinner with my family and I went to the restroom and I saw this woman had written on the bathroom stall wall, lynn plus men who don’t love her. And I saw that and I thought to myself as a behavioral change expert, I thought, oh, that’s Lynn plus men who she’s programmed to keep dating because she hasn’t repaired the underlying limited belief in her life. So it’s on repeat over and over and over. And she thinks the universe is just punking her with bad men choices.

Karen Salmansohn [00:50:40]:
But it’s her limiting belief that keeps showing up until she mends her limiting belief. So I think a lot of people do this. And I do believe that you have to take time to do what’s called a life review. And end of life duelists do this. They have life reviews for people to try to figure out, to try to feel proud of their lives. Even the parts that had challenges and obstacles and even heavy duty traumas, you know, to process that. So Lynn might have had a sincere trauma that’s making her repeat the pattern over and over. So I have a whole chapter about this where I help people to do a life review of their lives.

Karen Salmansohn [00:51:29]:
And one of the tools that I’m really excited about is chronological mapping. I don’t know if you ever heard of this one, so I’ll explain it a little. I love it because it’s visual. It’s the same reason why the marbles work. I think when you really see something that concretely, it really helps to change your perspective. It helps you to reframe. So I recommend in the book that people get like a big roll of butcher paper that you could get. They even sell them in art stores.

Karen Salmansohn [00:52:05]:
I know when my kid, my son was younger, they had like these big rolls of white paper that you could get. But if you have trouble finding it or you just want to do with what you have, you could tape together eight and a half by 11 sheets of paper. But you make sure that it’s very lock. And then you draw this long line all the way down. And that’s going to be your life. And then you start making little dots on that line. It’s chronological mapping of what’s called in the screenplay business inciting incidents. These are like the big moments in your life.

Karen Salmansohn [00:52:42]:
Fell in love, had heart, trampled on. First job, first, you know, job loss, you know, whatever it is, you write it down. And then you create a kind of a color treasure map system, like a little key where you might have, like, yellow means this, red means that, green means this. So you could start to see the patterns of your life, including little emojis or icons for it, like a heart or broken heart or dollar sign, just so you can look at the map. Like is this beautiful, colorful treasure map of your life. And then for each of the negative things that have happened to you, you try to think about the following. How was this a gift, an assignment, a bridge or a zigzag? And you look at where something else happened, because that happened that might not have ever happened. And you look for These things plus you look at how much life, more life you have ahead of you.

Karen Salmansohn [00:53:48]:
Because I think what happens sometimes with a lot of negative dominant narratives is people think they make it permanent and pervasive. They make it an always or a never. This always happens to me. I never let never something good happens. Always and never permanent and pervasive. And I want people to break that thinking, to break their permanent pervasive thinking and look at things that way.

Nick Urban [00:54:17]:
Speaking too. It’s very common in English to use those words always and never in certain other disempowering words like that.

Karen Salmansohn [00:54:26]:
Yes, I listen to that when I have a new coaching client. And if they tell me that they’re depressed or angry or resentful, I listen to the always and nevers in their language. And I think people can do that even walking away from this podcast. Watch for your always endeavors when you Sawyer. You know, so I spot them. I’m like attuned to them. So. And I spot them in myself, not in, not just in others.

Karen Salmansohn [00:54:51]:
Like, oh, that wasn’t always, you know, so. And then what I want people, the other thing that happens when people have challenges and sometimes real traumas. I mean, I don’t even want to, I don’t want to diminish the very real pain people have in their lives. But what they think is, especially when it’s first happened or when they’re in the midst of it or if they stay stuck, is they think, this is my whole life. Like the miscarriage again, true trauma, the death of a parent early. That becomes their whole story, though. And nothing is everything. And again, I have the greater than sign.

Karen Salmansohn [00:55:34]:
I guess I must subconsciously like math, I. I say the part cannot be greater than the whole. They make that part of their life, their whole life. And yes, it happened, and yes, it’s painful and even large, but it is not your whole life. Nothing is everything. The part cannot be greater than the whole. And when you see that line and it leads and there’s still stuff to be filled in, there’s still much, many more little, you know, inciting incidents, both good and challenging, that there will be there and more scribbles to come, you get excited about what are you going to do with the rest of that Runway? What are you going to do? And then you get excited about the end of your life. And that’s where your eulogy comes in.

Karen Salmansohn [00:56:21]:
And you think, how do I get from here to there? And you get more perspective on whatever’s happened before. But you see, there’s more time if you use your time well, although at the same time, we don’t know how much time, but that creates a fire under your tush. That mortality awareness creates urgency, and urgency creates action.

Nick Urban [00:56:46]:
Karen, in this process, when you’re actually mapping it out, what do the different colors denote? Are they telling, like the emotional charge, positive, negative, neutral, whatever it is around the particular things on the timeline, or is it some other theme of our choosing?

Karen Salmansohn [00:57:02]:
I usually just think of positive colors and negative colors for some reason as positive or more bright and dark, tend to be more dark oriented. But when you’re done, what you’re left with could actually be very beautiful. It can almost be like artwork. And if somebody is more of a visual artist, like they’re somebody that likes to draw or paint, they could even turn it into something that they’d want to hang up, you know? But even if you don’t, even if it gets folded up and put into a drawer and you take it out every once in a while, it will be a thing of beauty to look at your life like that.

Nick Urban [00:57:41]:
Yeah, I like that. Imagine a world where everyone can. I mean, at least the people that you want to can see your life map and you can see theirs, and you can understand each other much deeper, deeper level, and then obviously have a deeper connection because you know each other, where they’re coming from. Not anytime soon will that come out, do I think, but perhaps one day.

Karen Salmansohn [00:58:02]:
Yes. Yes. You know, that’s even interesting. If you’re dating somebody or you’re with somebody for a while and there’s starting to be challenges in your life, it helps to have empathy for what their past was that might have created some of their triggers. And to exchange chronological maps might be interesting, you know, or to make it something. I don’t know if couples would really do this, but I think it would be beautiful if they did. If they created the maps and then showed them to each other in an intentional way, like, let me show you the chronological map of my life and you do yours, and let’s really try to understand each other on a deeper level, a more meaningful level.

Nick Urban [00:58:44]:
Yeah. What’s interesting about it, too, is that something that triggers me won’t necessarily trigger you. Like, objectively, it’s this event. But, like, the fact that it has different effects on different people means that it comes from my conditioning, my upbringing, somewhere in my life story, or vice versa in yours. But, like, it’s not necessarily that the action itself is what caused it. It’s like my interpretation, my story around it, and my experience all Meld into one, which color, whatever the event actually was.

Karen Salmansohn [00:59:15]:
Yes. And the other thing in the book I write about, you’re reminding me because it’s a long book. Well, not that long, but it’s, you know, it’s more than what I can say in one podcast interview. I talk about changing your personal narrative. So, like, if Lynn from the restroom were to have become my client, I would have her mindfully change what her narrative is around Lynn plus men who don’t love her to actually replace that with a more positive narrative. Like, like, I learned lessons from these men that helped me in whatever it would be for Lynn. I’d have to know what Lynn’s, you know, events were. But then you actually have to replace it because in the book I talk about, and this is actually another good behavioral change thing, that the best way to stop a behavior isn’t just to stop it.

Karen Salmansohn [01:00:07]:
You have to do what I call a stop and swap. For example, I have two dogs, and one of them is a little bit more naughty than the others. Pablo. Pablo, our wiener dog. And if Pablo gets a hold of one of my slippers and I want to stop Pablo from chewing my slipper, if I just take away the slipper, the dog will keep going back to the slipper because the dog has this urge to chew on something. Well, our brains have this urge to chew on something too. So if you tell Lynn, just stop thinking that, Just stop thinking Lynn plus men who don’t love me, she’s going to go back to it because she has this urge to chew on something. And that’s where reframes come in.

Karen Salmansohn [01:00:55]:
So to say to Lynn, okay, instead of chewing on that statement, let me give you a positive narrative for you to chew on instead. And you get used to chewing on that positive statement. So the best change of behavior and a thought is to not just try to stop it, but to do a stop and swap. And I explain how to do that in my book as well.

Nick Urban [01:01:16]:
Awesome. Well, Karen, if people want to connect with you or if they want to grab your new book, your to die forlet again, I mess it up. Your to die for life. How do they go about that?

Karen Salmansohn [01:01:28]:
Okay, well, thank you. Well, my name is Karen Salmonson, and everybody mangles my last name. They’re always saying salmon sin salmon. And I’m always saying, not salmon, non salmon. So my main website is not salmon.com, like notthefish.com and my Instagram is not salmon. Facebook not salmon. Substack is even subset.com not salmon. But I call myself the standup philosopher there because I like to mix humor with whatever insights that I share.

Karen Salmansohn [01:02:03]:
And then my book is called Year to Die for Life. And I do have a website just for that called you’re to die for Life dot com. And the book is sold wherever books are sold.

Nick Urban [01:02:13]:
I was about to ask you that. All right. Thank you for that. And final question. If people leave here with one takeaway, what do you hope that is?

Karen Salmansohn [01:02:21]:
We are here and then we’re not. And it’s up to each of us to make sure the here part is as meaningful as possible.

Nick Urban [01:02:29]:
Beautiful. Karen, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.

Karen Salmansohn [01:02:34]:
Thank you for having me. I loved our conversation.

Nick Urban [01:02:36]:
Me too.

Nick Urban [01:02:37]:
Thanks for tuning in to high performance longevity. If you got value today, the best way to support the show is to leave a review or share it with someone who’s ready to upgrade upgrade their health span. You can find all the episodes, show notes and resources mentioned at outlier. Com. Until next time, stay energized, stay bioharmonized, and be an outlier.