In yesterday’s Thursday HotSeat, we had the pleasure of benefiting from the immense wisdom and life experience of a highly successful and integral Member of the Club, whom I’ve had the pleasure of working with for 9 years and now call a close friend.
He openly shared heart-warming moments including ups and downs experienced in business and his personal life, as well as the amazing gifts and learnings he gained along the way.
He told us that the old saying that ‘life is not a dress rehearsal’ drives his life and he shared a moment related to this that happened when he was 8 or 9 years old:
“ I had a Grandmother that believed in me and something happened where she said if you can achieve this, I’ll give you a dollar (which was a lot of money in those days). I achieved it but only to 90% and I thought “oh well, that’s that”.
But she came and gave me the dollar and I said “I didn’t deserve that”. She said “yes you did because of the effort and the determination you had to make this happen, it doesn’t matter whether you did or didn’t get there, what matters is that you did what it takes to get there”.
Something about that has affected my whole life, that what counts is giving it a go, it doesn’t have to be 100% successful. I also don’t want to let her down, she died having regrets and I never knew until she was really ill.
She said “I should never have been married to your Grandpa as I didn’t live my fullest and best life, because I lived his life. I wanted to be a Dr and I wasn’t allowed to be a Dr but I should have gone back to medical school”.
I decided then that I don’t want to have regrets in my life.”
This reminded me of an inspiring piece which echoes these sentiments. If you haven’t read Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware, a palliative care nurse who recorded the wisdom of many people reaching the end of their time here, I highly recommend that you do.
It may just change the way you live.
We all drew inspiration, courage and wisdom from yesterday’s brilliant session. It’s such an honour to get to know successful leaders at this level.
I’ll leave you with some advice from our Special Guest and Member that gives an indication to the way he lives his life:
Do everything you can to understand the true expression of you and bring that to the World – and do it as courageously as possible.
