The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #332 - Jodi Wellman

TRANSCRIPT

Jodi Wellman
if all we're getting is one day at a time to wake up and thank God we woke up today, why not make this moment just a little bit better and brighter and funnier or more interesting or just more heartfelt. So some people have a bandwidth and a desire for more or less.

And it's really just up to us to be honest with ourselves and say, are you feeling like you are as alive as you want to be? And if you have that poking sense that you think, oh, I think I'm selling myself short, then maybe that's your opportunity to go live a little wider or deeper.

Melanie Avalon
Welcome to the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast, where we meet the world's top experts to explore the secrets of health, mindset, longevity, and so much more. Are you ready to take charge of your existence and biohack your life? This show is for you. Please keep in mind, we're not dispensing medical advice and are not responsible for any outcomes you may experience from implementing the tactics lying herein.

So friends, are you ready to join me? Let's do this. Welcome back to the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast. Oh my goodness friends, I had so much fun in today's episode. Yes, this is a part two special Q&A wine night with Jodi Wellman. She is beyond fantastic. I first had her on the show for her incredible book, You Only Die Once. And in today's episode, we touch on some thoughts that you guys had about the show and go on so many fun, incredible tangents. Things like how to actually live your best life, how to be happy, the role of social contagion, the potential importance of emojis, how to optimize your email, whether or not you should have a book of bad, dealing with appropriate emotions, the importance of noticing and self-awareness, the benefits of laughter, and so much more.

The show notes for today's episode will be at melonyavalon.com slash Jodi Wellman. That's J-O-D-I-W-E-L-L-M-A-N. Those show notes will have a full transcript as well as links to everything that we talked about. So definitely check that out. I can't wait to hear what you guys think. Definitely let me know in my Facebook group. I have biohackers, intermittent fasting plus real foods plus life. Comment something you learned or something that resonated with you on the pinned post to enter to win something that I love. And then check out my Instagram, find the Friday announcement post. And again, comments there to enter to win something that I love. All right. I think that's all the things. Without further ado, please enjoy this fabulous conversation with my dear friend Jodi Wellman. Hi, friends. Welcome back to the show. Oh my goodness. I am so excited about the conversation I'm about to have. And friends, this is actually the first time ever in podcasting history I've done almost 900 podcast episodes. And I have never publicly, I'm putting publicly in parentheses, had a wine night episode on the show with a fabulous guest. This is a first. So Jodi Wellman, that's how special you are. Just saying.

Jodi Wellman
Oh, do you know, I feel simultaneously ashamed that I am leading you down a dark alley towards alcoholism, haha, but I'm also just totally giddy and thrilled and so excited to get to be back to talk with you.

Melanie Avalon
Yes, I am just so, so excited. So the backstory for friends on today's conversation. So back in July of 2025, I had on this show the incredible Jody Wellman. This woman is somebody that everybody I think needs to just cross paths with in their life because she is that motivating when it comes to truly just living your best life. So I had her on for her book, which is called You Only Die Once, How to Make It to the End with No Regrets. It was published in May 2024. And I laughed my entire way through that book. And also, like I said, walked away so inspired.

So Jody, she is the founder of a company and an entity and a movement called 4000 Mondays. And it's all about helping people just make the most of their life and really appreciate their days and, and count their Mondays. She also has a TED Talk called How Death Can Bring You Back to Life, has over 1.3 million views. And fun fact, it was the 14th most watched TED Talk release in 2022 out of 15,900. Wait, really quick question. Do they tell you this? Do they like send you like, how did you know this? This is so cool.

Jodi Wellman
Yeah, somebody created analytics. It was not the Ted people, but they seemed quite reputable and I'm going with it.

Melanie Avalon
That's absolutely amazing. That's so incredible.

So on our last episode, we dive deep into her book and we talked about so many things. We talked about Jodi has this really cool quadrant that you put yourself on and you can figure out how much you're living in your life with meaning and vitality. So there's these four quadrants and where do you lie and how can you change that? And we talked about the role of happiness and what actually leads to happiness and what doesn't. And we talked about something I love, which is planning and people who don't like planning. We talked a lot about memento mori. So this idea of thinking about death, like actually actively thinking about it and the benefits of that habits and how they can actually be problematic because so much of the education out there is about how you should have more habits all the time. And this was about maybe have less habits and that is just the beginning. So I will put a link to that conversation. But in any case, we had that show and then immediately we were like, oh my goodness, we should do a part two. And since Jodi and I are both lovers of imbibing and alcoholic drinks, we're like, we should have a wine night and do a listener Q&A and get listeners thoughts on these topics and just chat about it. So Jodi, thank you so much for being here.

Jodi Wellman
Oh, I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm raising my glass right now. You can't see me but Ching to you. Cheers.

And yeah, okay, wait, I could do sound effects. Yep. And, and I'm just kidding. Yeah, like I said earlier, and I decided that I'm trying not to I'm no longer tamping down my enthusiasm because life short. So I get to have unbridled enthusiasm by getting to hang out with you on a Friday night.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness, I actually have a question about that just to like start with that. Because I think about this a lot because I feel really enthusiastic about life and I love the dopamine of life, I love the things, I love when I email people to put a lot of exclamation points with emojis. The emojis clarify that the exclamation points are not like angry, you know, they make it known that it's like good exclamation points. And sometimes I wonder if that's just like too much, you know, like should we tone it down?

What are your thoughts?

Jodi Wellman
Oh, this is such a juicy topic because I've come I've come through this one on the other side I think and some of it has to do with just it all this is like Comfort with your personal brand dare. We say I think that if you feel That you are an enthusiast about being alive and or the topic at hand that you're emailing someone about or that you just like them So much and you just want to express that and I'll share with you clearly I'm a very open recipient but getting a note from you feels like a love letter It feels delicious and if and again, I'm biased because I would prefer also a whole series of emotives type of language and and Enthusiasm, but I guess I just want to say if if what we're worried about because I've been like I said been through this if we're worried that a recipient is not going to be as enthusiastic or judge us because of our enthusiasm then Should we all not just join hands and say fuck them?

I mean that that could work like what could go wrong What could go wrong? Like where?

Melanie Avalon
Here's the risk. I'll tell you my concern. My concern is that they won't take me as seriously. I think that's it. I really think that's it. Yeah.

Jodi Wellman
Has that happened to your knowledge or potentially?

Melanie Avalon
It's actually a great question. I was literally asking myself that.

I was like, well, wait, have I ever had that experience? Well, so here's the thing. It would be hard to track because I would assume that if I have, because there's like a lot of, like with the nature of my work and your work, you know, we're engaging with a lot of people all the time and like a lot of new people. There's just a lot of people. So I wouldn't necessarily know if maybe some people dropped off because of my, my emojis.

Jodi Wellman
Yeah, I have an opinion that, again, it's worth a nickel, but I do think that this comes up a lot in the work I used to do around looking at executive presence. Because this is really, I think, what you're getting at. It's like, you want to be taken seriously, you use those words, right? And I think that there's a way to have both, but I think you need it to be on a scale, and the weighting of each scale we can determine.

But there's a fear we have, which is that if I show up giddy, that it will make me look fluffy and empty. However, what we're overlooking, and in your case, if I could use you as the example is, you've got a body, a substance here, look at your track record, look at what you've produced, look at what you do. And so it's kind of like you've earned your stripes, if I could say it that way. And so I think you've earned the right, not to say that other people haven't, I'm always careful about that. But you get to be showing up as the one that's in a Zoom room meeting with a potential sponsor being enthusiastic to the point where someone, if they were earlier in their career and they hadn't proven themselves in any way, shape or form, might seem a little bit empty. Does that make sense? Like you've earned your stripes, you continue to produce good stuff. And so I believe that allows you, there's an equation somewhere out there why you get to use X emojis for X podcasts you have produced, or X books you have written. So I think that there's a gravitas that can come and that you can create levity after some.

Melanie Avalon
gravity. I love this so much.

And I have felt that for sure. Like sometimes I'll be on group chains with multiple people and I'll have my my emoji filled enthusiasm. I'm like, you know what, I am. This is already established. So, so, so it's okay. But then interestingly, there's also on the flip side, the complete other flip side is, like when you're complete, brand new beginner, without the experience, enthusiasm can go so far. Like I feel like I got a lot of my like job interviews and things for when I didn't have experience just from enthusiasm.

Jodi Wellman
Yes. Well, this is interesting because you can be enthusiastic, which means eager and keen and showing up and asking the right questions and the brightness in your eyes.

And then what I think we're talking about is the silly side that we want to embrace as well. And I'll share with you that in my own corporate story, there were times where I felt like I needed to play a role of the executive, the professional leader, and I could play the role well, but then I would go home feeling a bit dead inside. And if so much of what we're really talking about in the world of what your audience listens to and the stuff I write and talk about is like living a life worth living, so much of it has to do with honoring our values. And I went through enough coaching programs and exercises to say, wait a sec, one of my values, it's not just fun, but it's actually playfulness and it's actually even silliness. And I, again, back to the idea that if I came out in my career early days as a 23-year-old silly out of the gates, I may not have gotten that far, that fast, right? But I felt like I had to honor my values of showing up at a meeting, for example, after again, I felt some degree of confidence that I've got some substance behind me, but I felt like to be the me I wanted to be that made me feel good about myself, that made me feel energized. It meant that I was going to be the one back before COVID when we'd all be sitting around a boardroom table or I'd go and meet with clients and they were in a big round room. I felt like for me to be me and for me to live the life I wanted to live, it meant that I was going to be the one to be a reverent and make a joke or to set up a part of a meeting that was kind of silly or to have a clip of a video in a presentation that's just goofy and that honored kind of who I am.

Now someone else might say, I want to show that I am so strategic or I'm so analytic and then great like then you can whip out the spreadsheet, do you? So I feel like for me what it tracks back to is values and I also think for you, can I get nosy and ask again as the former coach that I used to be like, what is it about you doing the emojis and the exclamation and being excited in your communication? What is it about that that is important to you?

Melanie Avalon
What's important to me is it's just how I want to communicate the passion and the vibe and the gratitude and happiness. So like what I feel, I want other people to feel.

I think a lot of it does come down to, we were talking before this about birthdays and such, I want collectively people to feel the energy and the vibe of what I'm going for and the gratitude that I have. So I think it's a lot about that, like how it's gonna make them feel. Yeah.

Jodi Wellman
Yeah. Well, I love nerdy sciencey stuff that I know you get it on too. And there's this cool concept of social contagion theory. And it is that the attitudes are contagious amongst social groups.

And if you, for example, are the one in your podcast or in a communication chain of a text or in a meeting you go to, if you are the one showing up in a certain way with an energy and a passion for life and joie de vivre, it is going to be contagious. Just like how we full well know that the downers in our lives, that that's also like an anchor pulling us down, right? So I feel the same way as you that I want to be the beacon in any given day. Like it's actually even part of my purpose in life is to be the bright spot in someone's day to help wake them up to live. Because again, if all we're getting is one day at a time to wake up and thank God we woke up today, why not make this moment just a little bit better and brighter and funnier or more interesting or just more heartfelt. And so I think you get to acknowledge you are impacting other people's emotional states and it's scientifically proven. So yeah, I say high five to you over there emoji on

Melanie Avalon
Well, high five back and that makes me so happy that that is part of your life mission because I was literally reflecting before we started recording. You're one of those people where I just now I just think about you not like in a weird creepy way, but if

Jodi Wellman
You heard it here first, restraining order in effect.

Melanie Avalon
I know. And Dateline comes starts now.

But no. So like you're the type of person where if I just think about you, I immediately get this incredible vibe, like feeling like uplifted feeling like, like I laugh. I don't even know what I'm laughing about. I just smile. So you're definitely you're doing that. So social contagion is a real thing verified.

Jodi Wellman
Oh, you can't, you can't see me right now, but I'm kind of weirdly like hugging myself, but it's almost like it's from you. And so thank you for that.

That's mutual gratification for the record. When I think of you on weirdly, also no need to call any authorities. It is a similar way of an energy. So vitality for me, by the way, is, you know, it's one of the dimensions. I am very interested in widening our lives with vitality. And there's a definition that has always struck me. And I think of it and I think of you. And so this is what it is. It's called a positive health of spirit. And when I think of that, if I could do, you know, the old thing like, Oh, your pictures in the dictionary, I think that your picture for me is about vitality. It's about living a life where you have this positive sense of aliveness and a positive health of spirit.

And there is this notion, I put it in the book and I doodled it and I believe it's Japanese in particular, that is a word that they have about vitality, meaning that it is, that you have this energy that is similar to the energy required to blow the lid off of a pot of boiling rice. So key, right? This idea like, do you have the fur? Do you have fervor? Do you have a passion for life? Do you have, do you, are you bubbling from the inside so much so that you're blowing your flipping lid off? And I think about about you, you exemplified that, but I also think about that as not all of us have to be lid lid blowers in life. Some of us are cool to just be like, I'll just eat the rice. That's cool. I want that too. Fried rice, please. I'm sorry. You would never say that. I love the idea that like, if we could just all get our little version of that positive sense of aliveness, then isn't that a cool life worth living?

Melanie Avalon
Thank you so much.

And so my question there, and I promise listeners, we're going to get to the listener questions we have, but you mentioned it just now when you're saying that not everybody's the, you know, the lid blower, some are just the rice eaters, not just, but some people are the rice eaters. So that level of vitality, if I'm the definition that you just described, but other people, their baseline is not that, but they are most satisfied and content at a lower energy level. Does that mean that, like, how do we even define what we're aiming for? Then if it's so independent.

Jodi Wellman
Yeah, this is, this is to me, the magic of life in that this, I think what makes the world go around, you know, it's that some people are going to choose chocolate and some people are going to choose vanilla and some people are, are going to choose by really an hour or something. It's that it's all relative, right?

And even though there's this urging that's out there about living your best life, best, I think has an asterisk because it's defined by you. And we do all have a baseline. They're like, how you said that? Because there's, you know, how in a lot of the times, even around weight management, it's like there's this set point theory. And there is this idea in, in psychology around what's called hedonic adaptation, it's called, or like the hedonic treadmill, you probably heard it as this idea that when we are exposed to something that is great in our life, we will get used to it and we will return to our sort of average level of functioning. And I like that. Well, first of all, it's a crappy reality that like you go and do the thing that's going to be so exciting, right? Like you make the big move and you move to Paris, which is on my list, or you go and you get that really fabulous car or job or boyfriend or whatever the thing is, it's like you're going to adapt to it because that's what makes you human. And the presumption there is that, A, we want to keep aiming for things that will continue to fulfill us, but also it's that we have a bit of a set point. And some people have different predispositions to want more novelty or to need more, yeah, need more stimulation. Or some of us are just homebodies, like me, or some of us just, we need different doses of aliveness in order to feel like we're rocking it. And I have no shame about my own small amounts of life that I need. And I still need, I need to be reminded to live. That's why I do what I do to be super duper honest. I need, I know my inclination is to just live a very narrow life that I would, would be fine, but I want more than that. And so I have to remind myself to get out, do more, try new things and then come home and cocoon, you know, so some people have a bandwidth and a desire for more or less. And it's really just up to us to be honest with ourselves and say, are you feeling like you are as alive as you want to be? And if you have that poking sense that you think, Oh, I think I'm selling myself short, then maybe that's your opportunity to go live a little wider or deeper. But if you feel like, I remember in our, in our last conversation on your podcast, you were so honest about, you're like, I don't feel bored. I don't feel like I need to shake things up. And, and I love that. So you don't, then you don't need to shake it up necessarily. Right? So the, the relativity I think is really important to honor for all of us.

Melanie Avalon
That was amazing. You literally captured it perfectly with the idea of the hedonic treadmill and and the set point in the baseline.

Actually, just one last thing quickly to that point, I think because I'm envisioning this graph in my head and I think because you're talking about this idea of people like trying to do things that they think will make them happy. And then, you know, it's just, again, it just drops back down to to baseline and this treadmill effect. And I think people confuse the so if it were to be a graph, there's like the vertical line and that's like these things that we think are going to make us happy. So we're like focusing on like a lot of happiness, like this big thing, this one vertical line. Whereas for me, what I look at is the horizontal, which is I know the verticals like the highs. They're going to happen, but then they're going to come back down because that's just the way the dopamine works. But I know the horizontal, the horizontal is there. Like I know that I will keep doing. I know there's something after that. And so I don't look for the ending in the in the vertical because it's just going to come down again. But there will always be the horizontal like there will always be something next after after it. And that's what makes me like really happy. So like what I say is like everything that I go for that I think will make me happy pretty much does make me happy like it pretty much does. And then it's like onto the next thing rather than like putting everything on this one moment to like make me happy in a life.

Jodi Wellman
Oh my gosh, that is the coolest thing. And by the way, your visual is so powerful. You know, I need to doodle this now. This is, and I'll give you all the credit all and I'll even, well, I can't really doodle faces as beautiful as yours, but I would try.

But I would say like, you're so, this is one of the biggest keys to happiness. It's like, let's manage, like the spike is not going to, we know it's not going to go forever. So, but what your point is, is that I'm going to yield and capture and have a great time with this high moment, whatever that might be. And you know, it's fleeting because like welcome to life, but you know, there's a next thing. And so can I ask you a question? Do you ever get sort of duped by yourself with this idea of like wanting happiness from an achievement and then hoping for it, but then being disappointed that like you move the goalposts and it's sort of like, well, then it's never enough. Like the, you never really land on the happiness lily pad for long. Do you ever find that?

Melanie Avalon
So, you can't see me either right now, but I'm so happy because I'm obsessed with what you just asked. I'm obsessed with this question.

Like, I love this question because I've had conversations with girlfriends. I'm having flashbacks right now to a conversation with a friend and she was saying, like, you know, don't – because I was really excited about this potential meeting with a man and she was like, well, you know, you shouldn't like think too much about it because, you know, it's not going to last and it's basically you shouldn't be so excited about this potential moment. And I was like, no, because it is going to be great and it is going to feel amazing and all the dopamine and then there will be another moment after that. So I actually – I don't – because I think people – I don't experience that. The majority of what I look forward to, I really, really enjoy it, but I'm just so excited because I know there's so much more after that. So I'm not worried about it not living up to the expectations and then dropping me down. I just enjoy it and then I get excited because there's more to come.

Jodi Wellman
This is this by the way, okay back to emojis. I've got the head exploding emoji right now Although that guy's face looks a little bit evil They need to make an emoji with the head exploded with like someone's eyebrows who are like, wow not You know the negative guy.

But anyways, I love this about you because you're hitting on a topic that I'm very very smitten with about equanimity and It's sort of like people who are Buddhists right now are all like yeah And and or people some people come by it naturally but this idea about Accepting things and not clinging to them fiercely like what you're with this example you gave is like meeting this guy it's like you're not gripping onto the idea that it's gonna be something forever and like taking your nails and like Making nail marks in the expectation. It's sort of like a You're cool with what happens no matter what and so people who have practiced true equanimity Like it's not an indifference to the outcome because that almost denotes like a pathological like Disengagement with life which clearly we are not playing in that sandbox.

This is about I'm cool with it because Something else is gonna be coming down the pike Which is hope and optimism bundled into the most fabulous cocktail I think I've ever dreamt of stirring together, right? That's you How did you get that? How did you become that person who trained you? Who did this to you?

Melanie Avalon
I don't know if it's a numbers game because there's so many potential things that can make me happy. Maybe if I was myopically focused and I thought all my happiness was going to come from one thing, I mean, that would just ruin this whole idea.

But I feel like I can always do other things and try new things. I always say that I'm very ... Okay, I've never done any sort of drug, so I don't know the technicalities, but I've heard that different drugs correlate to different things. I've heard cocaine is dopamine high. I was like, I can never do cocaine because dopamine is what really, really drives me. I'm so aware that there's so many things that create dopamine that it doesn't make any one moment. It does two things. One, it doesn't make any one moment so important for the end all of the dopamine because there's so many other options. But two, I don't not appreciate it still because it still feels great.

I think if you just understand that it feels great and it's fleeting, then you can completely enjoy it and continue enjoying because you just have a lot of fleeting but sustained because you understand that it keeps coming moments.

Jodi Wellman
Yeah, this is an acceptance of the rhythm of life and also a welcoming faith that more cool things will come. So faith, I use the word deliberately. Some people believe in it in a religious way, some people it's more of a spiritual way, and some of it's just our own philosophy of life, right? Like the sun will rise tomorrow. Like I know that cool things are on the horizon and it may not be literally tomorrow that the thing happens.

Can I ask you how you feel about when crappy things happen? What's your attitude about that stuff? Is it similar? Yeah, it's kind of...

Melanie Avalon
of like, well, well, A, I think the best antidote to, you know, unfortunate, unpleasant, unfun things is laughter. So like, just being like, well, this sucks is like so helpful.

Yeah, no, I'm pretty, I'm pretty aware that it's, I don't ever see it as just like the happiness and the dopamine is not it perpetual, like does not exist consistently. Neither will the downs and the lows. So yeah, it's all the same. It's all the same thing. I just focus more on that there will be more happiness coming.

Jodi Wellman
Yeah. We're so eerily similar.

And when you just said that line about finding it kind of funny when the stuff goes awry, that was when I knew that we were long-lost soulmates, because when stuff goes awry, I've found a way to reframe it. And I don't think we talked about this when we had our first conversation on your podcast, but did I tell you about the book of bad calls that, okay, I recommend this for everybody because there ain't no shortage of bad crap that happens to us or that we make a bad decision, you know. So my husband and I have a journal, and of course the journal is emblazoned with all sorts of skulls. So it's a very cute journal. And we decided early days, we've been together for almost three decades, been a minute, and stuff goes wrong, right? Like you go to this like dinner that you're excited about, and it's a total flop. Or you book an Airbnb, and you go and you're like, what happened here? It's like something like a total disaster. Or even something simple, right? Like you have this, your hopes up about a movie, and it just was crap. Or you tried this special, I don't know, no-bake lasagna, and it was just a complete flop. We put all of the snafus as entries in the book of bad calls. And it is immediately reframing of everything, right? So when you are on this vacation, say, and you've got this, you're at this back to the Airbnb, you could be sitting in squalor, which obviously you would just get a new Airbnb. But what we do now is we look at each other with this look at our eyes of excitement. And we say like, this is the B.O.B.C., the book of bad calls. Like we're excited that we get to put it in and then laugh about it later, which then kind of helps make you laugh about it in the moment. And so if everything is just a little bit of a comic, comical adventure, like your life's a giant TV show, and you get to just look at it like, all right, for example, is the death of a loved one may not be a bad call. But you know, maybe the hors d'oeuvres that you ordered for the memorial service that ended up being like really pathetic little wieners with toothpicks in them, like maybe that's a book about calls that you could laugh about later. So looking at life with like almost like the shitshow gong show that it is in a loving way is just a cool way, I think, to accept the cacophony of all that it is.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, I love this so much. So, so much.

I'm having flashbacks to kind of similar. I think I almost not that I enjoy the hard things, but I really appreciate like you mentioned something about like kind of like watching it. It's kind of like, it's entertaining in a way. Like I remember when I had my first breakup and it was, I mean, it was it was pretty much like the most tragic breakup situation you could have like Valentine's Day. He stood me up and slept with his ex-girlfriend and then broke up with me type thing. And I remember I was, I remember I was sobbing with my hands on the floor. And I had this moment where I was like, Oh my goodness, like in Taylor Swift song, she talks about like sobbing with her hands on her floor, people actually do this. And I was like, so excited by by the idea that I was like in this moment, that's like this whole thing. So I think like these reframes where you just appreciate life, you can just appreciate it by just the beauty of the depth of the emotion or by laughing at it. I mean, like you're like you were saying, I just think it's, I love it, even if it's art.

Jodi Wellman
The way you described your hands on the floor, I had to stop and imagine it. And I thought, whoa, that is visceral. And yes, like that it's Taylor and that it does your ability to stop and see it in the zoom out way is a psychological, it's not a, it's not a trick, but it is a tactic. It's cool.

It is one of the things we can do. And it's recommended that seeing your life from that macro level fly up and be like, Hey, let me just get some perspective here. And there's this notion called noticing, and it could be noticing even the small things like, Hmm, I noticed, I find myself irritated when we start to talk about this topic or when I start to think about this person who I'm going to be working with or whatever, just simply noticing, not judging too, too, too much, but noticing. And so in your instance, finding yourself in a pretty big emotion, whether it is one that is of massive despair or of elation or of here's an example, a bit of a downer, but trust me, I won't go down the downer path too long. Our beloved cat died after 18 years, a couple of weeks ago, and my husband and I, we were sent into the wilderness of despair, of grief. And because I see life as this wild ride by choice, I have been actively amused and curious by looking at my emotions about losing Andy, for example, and I'll sit back and I'll be, I'm more, it's almost awe and you know, awe and wonder are one of two very powerful emotions that are part of the good life.

If we can try and find ways to create awe and wonder, research is clear that it does create more wellbeing, which I'd love to come back to, but just even just to wrap up the Andy thing, noticing and saying, I am amazed at how my mind is playing tricks on me, how I can oscillate between being so sad and missing him, but then also in the next minute, laughing at something else and planning something else and then avoiding it. I know I'm avoiding it, but then coming back to it and just being almost impressed back to odd, like my, this human brain is a marvel with how we try to cope with things, sometimes not healthfully, but sometimes yes. So back to, yeah, noticing and finding on, for you noticing yourself hands, hands on the floor in the gut wrenching moment. I think this is what meaning is made of and we underestimate it, but you know, meaning is often forged through fire. It's through the hardship and loss and struggle that we end up coming through it and going, my life is richer and more like it's like a tapestry that has more texture or it has more to it than it did before, damn it, even though we didn't want to have to feel like losing our cat or being really egregiously fucked with on Valentine's day.

Melanie Avalon
First of all, I'm so sorry about Andy. Oh my goodness. Sending him good vibes. He's in kitty heaven, hopefully. He, she.

Jodi Wellman
It's a he and he's, yeah, he's, he's killing it somewhere.

Melanie Avalon
he is, for sure. It's interesting.

So, you said something and I had a flashback to... Because you talked about the different emotions during these different experiences. And I remember when my grandmother passed away, that was my first really intensive funeral experience where the whole family is there and you're mourning together communally. And it was a few years ago. And I remember going and there being moments where I wanted to laugh, not about the subject matter, but about other things. And I was just watching the whole experience and I was like, this is so interesting that I have to censor certain emotions right now. I can only feel certain emotions in a certain way and they have to mean a certain thing rather than appreciating life and feeling whatever emotions. And I just remember being like, am I allowed to laugh right now about something not related? I don't know. Is that allowed? Which is just such an interesting thing to think about.

Jodi Wellman
It is. And it's funny you mentioned the funerals. Obviously, that's more in my domain because it's so taboo. And we're all weird about how we don't want to talk about death, but yet we're kind of fascinated by it. And then when we're in a moment where people have died, we're so weirded out by it that it does make even the simplest things seem more funny because our emotions are all heightened.

It would be so cool if we could just normalize those moments and just have a real experience during some sort of a funeral or memorial to be like, hey, anything goes. If you feel like laughing or giggling, or if you feel like there was no judgment, except from the people who will judge you, which obviously that may exist. And also, it acknowledges that we can contain multitudes. You could be grieving. So I'll give you an example. I spoke with a lovely new friend today, and she is in the midst of her mom's best friend died. And it was sort of a really perilous situation, and they're going to the memorial tomorrow. And we were acknowledging that we can hold many emotions at once and more specifically, because I never want to rush to force my agenda. My agenda is like, oh my God, life's short. Let's use the reminder of death as this motivator to live like we mean it. But that's really callous when I'm talking about a funeral, when people are really in the throes of despair about losing someone who's only 60. And I'm not trying to say that at that moment, we're going to be all like, rock on. What bucket list item do you want to kill this month? Because that's maybe not appropriate, but it's also wrong to not think that as humans, we can be at a memorial service feeling so sad that someone's gone, and also so confused in other emotions. And simultaneously, our spine straightens. And we sit up in that pew or wherever we are in the funeral home, and we go, whoa, I've now been reminded how precious life is and potentially short. And what do I want to do to make sure that I stuff the stuff I want into my life, just in case I go early too? You know, so acknowledging that multiple things can happen at the same time, I think that's a really important thing.

Melanie Avalon
I was wondering that too, because you were talking about the appropriateness of certain things and how it would come off. Do you think some people might listen to this and think that this is a privileged mindset where like easy for you to say that we love the highs and the lows, but you haven't gone through XYZ? And I think about that. I'm like, well, I am very privileged.

Maybe because I've been enamored with like growing up, I had like a sad quote book. I would like spend hours and I would just write like these, I would find like sad quotes from like philosophers and poets and literally I should pull after this, I'm gonna take pictures and I'm gonna send them to you. This was like a whole thing where I liked feeling these, you know, intense emotions on the sad side of things. I wasn't depressed or anything like that, but I just appreciated the feeling and the story and the arc of life. And I think sometimes maybe this is like a very privileged thing. And if I actually were not, you know, going through things much worse, maybe I would not have this approach to emotions.

Jodi Wellman
Oh my gosh. So much there, which is so interesting. And number one, just as an aside, there's a book by Susan Cain, Bittersweet.

Melanie Avalon
Yes. I want to have her on the show. She's like on my list of people. I'm like, I need to interview her. I haven't read the book, but I listened to an interview. She was amazing.

Jodi Wellman
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, she, as one of the many things she's written about and researched, you know, the power of melancholy, that it can be really human and normal to want to immerse ourselves in the sad shit. It's productive.

I like the way you even worded it. Like there's like access to this range of emotions, which especially as an adolescent, we're all just listening to sad shit, you know. So back to your privileged question, which I think is really important. Of course, yeah, I think you're super right that it's way easier to come at this, wow, meaning is forged through fire. Like, wow, I had a hangnail and that was really wrong. Okay, I'm exaggerating to make a point, but like, life is so hard, but I made it through and I see now. And then there are some people who are like, you don't know that you don't know the struggles, dude. And maybe some of us never will. And that is really, really true. And my immediate thought about that, of course, in addition to compassion and empathy, because I've had hardship, we all have, but maybe not again, comparative, we're trying to stack up against someone else who's had more, there will always be a winner, you know, of the sandwich department. And so for those people, one of the things that I find interesting in psychology science is that idea about post-traumatic growth, you know, and how I never want to be again, I want to not try to paint a paintbrush of don't worry, everything's rosy. But statistically speaking, in and around half of the people who go through trauma, they emerge after a period of time at a higher level of psychological functioning than they were before the trauma.

So an actual growth can occur through the hardship, right? So maybe it's going through war or losing someone through a traumatic event, experiencing just the most horrific things that life can offer. And so I think that there's interesting science there just in the event that someone's listening right now. And you're in that camp that you just mentioned, Melanie, you're like, listen, nice, nice wine night, ladies. But like, you don't know my life. And I'm like, I know you're right. And maybe sniff around post-traumatic growth and see not that you can impose it upon yourself. I actually do wonder about that. I don't have an answer to that right now. Can you somehow spur it? I don't know. But check it out. I also know that there's tremendous insight into like even Viktor Frankl, Man Search for Meaning, Holocaust survivor.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, that's what I was just thinking.

Jodi Wellman
Yeah. Were you like, again, and I, and I'm sensitive because here I am, I'm rushing to fill this void with all the good stuff that could happen.

If we've been through the calamities and let's also just like stop and sit back for a second and be like, for a lot of people, it's just super hard and it might be for a long time and that's where I look at my work, this idea about looking at the sanctity of life and I go back to the relativity. So my blog posts about the things that, you know, finding the stuff you love. I do think that there's actually some applicability and we're going to start super duper small and it might be that if you are in the throes of despair and life is actually, you're, you're not even sure why you're living, you know, maybe your next thing you can do tomorrow is just the one small tiniest joy you can eat out, which is just that you love your coffee in the morning or your ritual of just that simple cup of tea or maybe it's for you. It's just, you love to watch the sunset. Don't jam it all in one thing, right? It's like, what would that one little thing be that could give you that one small sliver of life is not all horrible right now. And that's something that can build. And so I just, maybe we'll leave it at that because again, I don't want to like placate the whole world with like, Oh, it's great. The sun will rise again. The sun will rise probably, but find the one little littlest thing that can give you joy and do that one little listing and not expect more from it.

Melanie Avalon
I love it so much. And then, and also having an abundance mindset, I think around it, because I think sometimes, at least for me, sometimes I feel bad.

I have like the secondary emotion about feeling bad, about feeling happy about the little thing, because I'm like, other people can't experience this. But I think that's only if you think that there's a limited amount of happiness to go around. So even though other people are suffering, it's okay if I feel happy about something.

Jodi Wellman
Oh my gosh, that is such an interesting idea. And you know what I'm immediately flicked onto in my head again, not to dismiss the deprived nature of reality for many of us, but it's also true that I've noticed and I say, but on purpose, knowing you're sensitive to that to that word, I mean it really as like, as an about face of, it's so funny, like some of the happiest people have come across are in the simplest of conditions, for example, or it can relate to a lot of the studies around the lack of a relationship between income and life satisfaction.

You know, I think about people that I have come across in different walks of life where the simplest thing, right? Like they may not have a lot of money to cobble together for a big family meal, but everybody comes together and brings a potluck and they just put on some music and they dance in their tiny little living room and they have this great time with her family and friends. And that low budget, low resource situation relative to someone else who might be planning a gala that might be designed, I'm making this up on the spot, I don't know, but like to be meaningful because it's going to raise money for a big nonprofit, but the people who are attending have been stressing about, did I buy the right outfit and am I going to go and how is it going to look and are we going to do valet or like who's going to be there or, you know, some of the extrinsic things that can get really squash our happiness or the, you know, I'd really just rather be home, but I have to beat this thing or how am I going to socialize that they're not my friends, they're fake or whatever. But that's like a classic exaggerated illustration of how income or money doesn't necessarily buy you happiness. But it's like the time and time again, I'm so comforted personally by seeing that it's the sweet, simple pleasures of life, the cheap and cheerful things that consistently bring people of all different situations in life, joy.

So I call it a workshop and these might be people, they could be like their various income ranges, their various scenarios about where they live and their environments. And when I ask questions about like, what's the stuff that makes you feel alive, I am never not heart warmed at the responses because they are as beautifully sweet and simple as you can get usually.

Right. So it is that someone will say it's when I sit on the floor with my dog and he puts his head in my lap and I just brush him maybe for 10 full minutes. That's 10 minutes is a long time, you know, and I don't have my phone in my hand. I'm just brushing. He's making those funny noises. Right. Or it could be that another person would say, I go on them and said this and I had so vivid, she said, I just did this thing on the weekend and I'm so I want to do this all the time now. She said, I went outside with my laptop and I brought my coffee and it was cold. This is back in the winter. She's in Wisconsin. So super cold. And I sat outside. She goes on one of those like Adirondack type chairs in my backyard.

Jodi Wellman
And I just sat and I sipped and I looked at the birds in the trees and it was sunny and it was really crisp, but I was on my laptop and she, and for the record, she was answering it, she was doing some work, but she felt so centered and grounded in nature and just feeling like it was also a little bit different from her usual in my office working. And that made her just feel like, like that little breath of life.

And so these examples don't cost anything. And I love that so much. So no matter what our situation is, no matter what budget is or how much time we do or don't have, it's available to us. Right.

Melanie Avalon
Yes, I love this.

And now we captured both sides of things because we started by talking about the potential happiness in these grand events and these big moments in life and now this is the all the potential happiness in these Every day quote small moments. And so maybe the key is just being aware that there's a broad spectrum of things on the minute to the grand scale that can make you happy and once you accept that and appreciate it and take it in Then it can just keep going

Jodi Wellman
Keep going. Yeah, and let's just not underestimate the impact of those small things, because those are just little bits that do add up.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness, I love it. Okay, do you want to hear some feedback from our episode that we did together last time?

Jodi Wellman
As long as it's amazing. Okay.

Melanie Avalon
It is. So Teresa said, oh my goodness, you two absolutely need to record the late night wine Q&A. So it's kind of late night. It's like later night for me. You're in a different time zone, it's earlier for you.

How's your wine doing by the way? Are you like, where are you? I might need to like top off though because I thought I had my bottle here, but I actually don't. So I might need to go get some more. So back to Teresa. So she said, she is so fun and so witty. I can listen to the two of you all day. I love that she validated how laying in bed in the morning and scrolling through social media isn't squandering if it actually fills you up and makes you feel good. I also really resonated with your take on meditating. Not for me, I find walking very relaxing and somewhat meditative for me. Okay, so the first part here, this actually relates to what we were just talking about because she's saying that, or maybe it's what I was talking about where I think like noticing what can actually make you feel good without the third party judgments about what society says about it. And it's like a very slippery slope because you can easily justify things, I think. Like, oh, this makes me feel good. So I'll just keep doing it when it's not healthy for you. But I think if you can have a, I'm curious your thoughts on this. Like if you can have an awareness of what makes you feel good and it's not having a negative effect on your life, should you just embrace it?

Jodi Wellman
Right, right, yeah, the extreme of what we don't want, which I think is just, you know, again, I like hyperbole, but it's like, it would be like a drug addict being like, oh my God, heroin makes me feel good, therefore I'm gonna keep doing it. Like, why would you chuck me out of it, you assholes? And I'd say, well, hold up, but I think most of us have the inner barometer and sometimes we can dupe ourselves. I've been known to as well, but I think inside of us, if we're being honest, and we say, wait a sec, I, right now, for example, back to the relaxing thing, because I think this is the theme that is hard for a lot of us to actually do. It's that I really feel like a day where I do like a Netflix binge and, or I want to take the afternoon off and go and just browse through Michael's craft store or whatever it is for you that makes you think, it feels delicious and I kind of want to do it. And I feel guilty about it.

Is the, we just have to do some like inner questioning. Like, is the guilt because of how you feel, how you think other people would think of you? Are you doing this every afternoon? Are you doing this every day? Or, you know, to the point where it's, is it gonna be restorative for you? So that you actually feel like, wow, I'm so, I feel so good and almost to the point, and this is this tape, don't take this the wrong way, but sometimes the litmus can be like, are you gonna be kind of proud to tell a friend that you did it because it's maybe a bit of a departure from your usual go, go, go. Just back to this one example of resting when you are go, go, go, because for some of us, maybe the other example is go, go, go when you're normally resting, but to be able to say, like I used to feel guilty about going to a matinee on a work day. But meanwhile, here I was, I chose to work for myself. I'm like, what are you doing? You decided to be an entrepreneur so that you could have flexibility, but you don't want people to know that you went to the 11 o'clock matinee because you think you're gonna judge you and think you're lazy or unemployed or stupid or, I don't know.

But then I kind of looked at it like, wait, I kind of would rather be the kind of person that people would be like, wow, like that's an interesting life. Not that I was, well, I guess I was at the time, maybe also interested in how people were assessing my life. But do you, it was part of it that it would be actually kind of a nice thing to be able to say, I did this thing and I'm so excited about it. I took the whole day off. You know, versus that when you know you start to go over the edge and you start to feel a little bit like, okay, I think I've been resting a little much and now your motivation might start to kind of come back a bit and paying attention to that. I think that's all we owe ourselves, how to pay attention to when the spark is there, the simmerings are there. And you start to think, okay, wait, what if I did just turn off Netflix for a minute and I did start to just go online and look up maybe the thesaurus or like some ideas and what if I kind of, now I'm feeling interested again.

Jodi Wellman
So it's like you said that you reiterated that wordmelon noticing. I think that's really important.

Melanie Avalon
No, I love this. First of all, I went to Michael's yesterday. Did you? Yes. And what I love about Michael's is that there's, and Hobby Lobby, they always have a coupon for 30 to 40% off. Always.

Jodi Wellman
Well, why don't I get the coupon, what am I missing out on?

Melanie Avalon
As always, you just go on their website, there's always.

Jodi Wellman
So on the moron, they're like, what sucker? There's one bitch a week that pays full price.

Melanie Avalon
Do you go to Michael's?

Jodi Wellman
in Hobby Lobby? Well, I've never been to Hobby Lobby, but my coast is around the corner.

Melanie Avalon
always a 30 to 50% off coupon on the website. Always.

Because I literally had like an entire contemplation of this in my head because I was like, I get so excited about the coupon, but it's always there.

Jodi Wellman
Oh my gosh, thank you. You just gave me, well, Michaels, you're doing a good thing for us. Thank you.

Um, but also let, like, let's just shine some light again. If, if anyone's afraid of judgment about like, you get to browse around anywhere you darn well want, but like you're walking out of Michaels with a thing that let's be honest, it's going to lead to something creative and maybe kind of like cool that you get to maybe create or give to someone, right? So I feel like we need to do marketing for Michaels because we need to let the whole world know this is where good shit starts anyway, anyway, they should sponsor you.

Melanie Avalon
They should. I saw a meme the other day and it was something about, like, why spend $5 for an object when you can spend $50 and craft it yourself. It's like, exactly.

Jodi Wellman
Horribly true.

Melanie Avalon
Yes. But in any case, no, I love this so much.

I think what Teresa, because I don't remember exactly our conversation, but I'm guessing it was about me saying that I wake up in the morning and I actually like to check email and social media right away because it wakes me up and it gives me dopamine. And I'm like, I've been told that's what you should not do. But it wakes me up and gives me dopamine and I don't experience anything negative from it that I'm aware of.

Jodi Wellman
You're a good example. You're, you're cool because you're in tune with the stuff that enlivens you versus deadens you, right? And I, I struggle with social media because I feel a very specific drag down sometimes and that I have to pay attention to cause I just have to be like, I'm going to do my thing for, I'm going to get in and get out. And sometimes it is fulfilling and when it is, well, duh, I'm going to stay on it. But I think many of us sort of, that's the difference in our lives between moments when we've outstayed our welcome with something.

And it could be a small thing like how long you're scrolling or how long, you know, you are doing any coping thing that might be past your point or how long you're at a party when you're like, I would just rather be home at my jammies or how long you're in a job that is really just not cutting into your life or a relationship. You know, I think the diff the distance of time between when we are in tune with, Oh, I think this is no longer really cool for me to our decision point to change it. That is something that can be the difference maker between a life worth living and a life that's, Oh, and I, and I just, I'm taking a tangent for a second, but I think, cause I'm not the only one who's been in this, been in a job where you're, or a situation with a work thing where you're like, no, I don't think I want this anymore. But then we feel stuck or we don't know what to do next. And that we're allowed to have a transition of figuring and trying to figure it out. And we're allowed to feel scared for a while. I have a scared budget where I'm allowed now to have, it depends on the situation, but it could be like anywhere from two weeks to like I guess two years. But the goal for me is every time I am aware that I no longer want to do a thing, that I just have to promise myself that I'm going to make a decision faster than I did last time. So I was in a job that I realized it was not, not for me, but I waited three years. And then the next time I was in a situation, I realized I wanted to change and I waited a year and I was still so mad at myself that it was a year, but then I had to go, Oh, but like that's a huge percentage improvement, you know? And now when I realized like for me, I realized I didn't want to do one-on-one coaching anymore. And it took me a while to buck up and just make that change, but I had to do it. And it was like, but as long as I'm just making some decisions faster, but past that borderline. So same thing. If you're realizing I'm no longer feeling really good about scrolling right now, Oh, okay, cool. What's your alternative and just make that change soon. That's all. That's the, that's the difference between, I think a delicious life and maybe even just an average life.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, so two things was the the epiphany about the three-year job was that the in your book the like the paper clip or the state stapler like refilling the staples in the stapler that was the stapler you're on it good memory yes i remember i was like a really powerful visual i was like i get i understand. Like i don't want to be like refilling the stapler and like the time that passes and doing it again later so with the email.

I check email in the morning, and this is this is my hack for people i need to know your relationship with email like for me I actually get a lot of dopamine from the emails like I. Like answering the emails it's it's very I like I like it it's like it's my job it's all the things I love it's the people it's the emojis so that's why it can be a good thing for me in the morning when I to wake me up because i'm not a morning person. And and my system, this is like a little bit of a tangent but for the emails that create some sort of like stress or anxiety or don't make me feel good I have this very intense system of. I will not like like if I see that it's in my inbox I do not open it right away because we don't want to be reactive so if I see an email and i'm like oh that's this conversation that we don't you know we don't we're not feeling good about so I let it sit. It's not like I'm avoiding it but I don't answer it right away and then I do all the other things and then I wait until I'm at a good place and then I only open the email when I'm at a good place and then I answer it and that is my that's me that is my suggestion for handling emails for people.

Jodi Wellman
I love to hear Amos, so this ends up feeling good for you. Like you feel good by this?

Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm. Yeah, like really good

Jodi Wellman
And how do you manage the headspace? Cause you open it, check it out and then market is on red, right? How do you, does your mind sort of like spiral with it? Do you, is it that you're processing and that's the value, but how do you not like.

Melanie Avalon
Like, do I stress about it?

Jodi Wellman
Yeah, yeah.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, like how they say that notifications are very stressful to us because it's like we are hunter-gatherers and we got a tap on the shoulder and we don't know what it is and so we're stressed. For me, the way I frame it and reframe it is not the same thing, but I know that they say that the brain takes 72 hours to reset its whole system.

So, if you're making a very important decision and it's something that is very intense and has a lot of factors and you could be reactive, you should wait 72 hours and then see and then respond. So it's not that exactly, but the way I categorize it in my head is, oh, there's this thing to address and then I'm just giving it time. So it's not like I'm worried about what it says or how I'm going to answer. I'm just literally reframing it as this has to have some time on it so that I know that I'm reacting from a good place. So I kind of just put it in that folder in my head of this needs some time to marinate.

Jodi Wellman
This is cool because I would, I would expect if you said right now I'm ruminating on these things, it's then multiple, like I've got 12 of them at a time that I'm thinking about. Well, you would know that about yourself and you would need an alternative, but this is working for you, which is interesting. And I love back to the idea about different strokes for different folks. Some of us would say, I can't handle to have it be stewing and brewing in the background, and that's up to you.

I, here's what I'll say about the email thing, because I think this is, it's the bane of a lot of our existence and it's one of the most dysfunctional things that I want to address with myself. So one way I've decided to start, this is now going on a couple years and it's made a big difference in my life. When I'm kind of quote unquote done for the day, you know, my husband and I go for a walk after our work day every day, which the timing will change, but I kind of put my phone down and I don't check it after that. Yes, I do this too. Okay, really like did it, cause like it's sort of a, if I've decided I'm not going to engage anymore tonight, then checking it won't help me. It'll only be, and like I used to do this thing, which now I look back on and I realize how goofy it was for me, which was I would check before bed, but I'd be like, do I need to know that person needs that from me tomorrow?

All it's going to do is be information that they're going to cloud my dreams. And I don't mind my dreams are mine. So it was like, I'm out, I'm out now. What I do is the minute I wake up, I check also. And I know it's a lot of experts, like you've alluded to have said not to do that first, but so for me, it's dismiss it from a certain point on night. I'm allowed to peek at a text message, but I also am not very responsive to text messages in the evening because I just want that to be my time. So here's the other thing though. It's more of like a mindset. I, I said that it's an area for me to work on for me. My inbox is a place that I have associated with an outsized desire to respond that I need to respond quickly because it reflects my desire to please. And if I don't, if I don't respond quickly, then I worry about the perception of it and I feel on top of things. So my self-worth and my sense of productivity is inherently then tied to how fast I'm responding to emails, which let's be honest back to the treadmill, like that's dumb.

So I offer that because I think I'm not the only one, but also just to say, there's an alternative, like I've never, you know, if I didn't respond, I'm just, maybe this is my therapy session out loud. If I didn't respond to someone today, urgently, okay. Does it mean they're not going to like me? Okay. Well, I guess I'm not going to be friends with that vendor or that client. I'm maybe that's, that's okay. If they don't like me, I want them to respect me, but it, and then also I'm not going to ever let anything go egregiously. Like I'm not going to not respond, but if it takes me a day or two, because then I look at it like I want to live the kind of life that isn't tethered to my inbox.

Jodi Wellman
Cause it does make me feel important or it does make me feel good to respond, but I'm actually, I'm getting a cheap high. Cause the dopamine I get when I respond to someone, I feel so good about myself that I responded to the client within 17 minutes or within a day.

Well, that's an addiction. That's actually like I'm like back to the chief high, whereas like, I think I want to be the kind of person that people will trust that I'm going to get back to them thoughtfully and professionally. And it may not be exactly today, but I it's coming and that I'm living my life in between the responses rather than responding and be on top of that and living my life around it.

So that's where I get a little bit. You can't see, but I've got a hand over my, my finger over my mouth, making that face. So yeah, I don't know how, if that relates to your email relationship.

Melanie Avalon
No, I'm dying right now. I think we could do like a four-hour episode on email like Like this is amazing.

So because I'm just having so many thoughts I'm very similar to you in a lot of ways like I feel the need to respond to people I I never want people to think i'm ignoring them What I found that works for me You mentioned like reading it and then marking it unread like I love that you said that that's what keeps me sane is the feeling of Calm I have is if I can know that everything not addressed is unread then it's there. I'm not going to forget it I think I have like a fear of like something slipping or forgetting so as long as I like it's unread So it will be addressed and then I have a personal A personal thing where I try to If I can't respond to a person that day because i'm so i'm like so similar to you like I want to respond Right away like all the things So what I do is if I can't respond that day I send an email where i'm like, thank you so much. I will respond You know asap and then I mark it as unread And then it's like in the list and then it's okay and this might just be completely like neurotic and But um, it's what it's what really works for me and like like you I I have a certain time at night where I I will not I will not open text I will not look at email because like you said that's only going to create like more anxiety of the thing to address so And I have this huge epiphany I was like, maybe the reason that in the morning I need to like check the emails is because I in order for me personally to feel like calm for the day I need to see Everything in coming So I can like know and then I can feel calm and maybe it's better if I meditate first, but I don't so Sorry

Jodi Wellman
Well, hey, I mean, it may be a trial, it may be like a test it for a week and see which one could work for you.

Melanie Avalon
I have tested it. And that's when I decided like, this was not my thing.

I tested like the do the 20 minute meditation. I did it for like two weeks, like before doing anything. It made me so stressed out.

Jodi Wellman
Oh, kill it. Done. Dead. Yep.

I like that you gave it a go. Like, and then you gave it and you gave it the good old college try, which is cool. I, this opens up the can of worms to about vacation because I'm always suspicious, right? So the stories we tell ourselves, like for me, I could go on a quote unquote vacation, but I'm always checking because I feel like, well, it makes me feel better and on top of things so that in the age old, well, when I get back, I don't want to be super stressed. But what we're sort of forgetting is that won't we be able to handle it when we get back? First of all, if there was an avalanche, second of all, the avalanche is actually now just going to be a slushy puddle of snow because most of the stuff will have resolved or they'll come back around or you're, if you have an out of office, it'll help to explain it away, which I haven't done an out of office in years. Shame on me because I've just always available, which is telling. So I feel like we might sell ourselves short in the happiness department by saying things like, like this is a quote I have for myself. No, I feel better. If I could just stay on top of my emails, then I feel better. And I'm not, I'm not stressed through the week when I get back, but like, what about training yourself to enjoy your time and unplug and get bored and experience the benefits of actually being alone with your thoughts, dear God, and maybe not having your email that again creates the squirt of dopamine and all the things and dealing with that life and then coming back and dealing with it when you get back. I don't know if there's a hundred percent of a right answer. I don't think there is, but I just want to question it.

Melanie Avalon
But I love it because I think one of the most powerful things I heard, I think it was, who's the Ted Ferris, I think maybe, one of those people. They were saying that most emails or like a majority of them do actually answer themselves if you like let them wait out.

So like my system is I answer a lot of emails like in the evening because by the end of the day, many of them have resolved.

Jodi Wellman
Right, you get to... nope, that's done.

Melanie Avalon
Well, we haven't even gotten to like the whole like fun thing we were going to do. Here's one more, one more feedback we had from last episode. This is from Karen. She said, my ears perked up when Jodi said that, quote, regrets are informative, reflecting on current regrets can certainly help to guide current and future decisions. That was her takeaway from the episode.

We might've just have to have like a part three where we actually do the listener, like Q and a stuff, but, um, regrets. So, and I was revisiting my notes from your book and you were saying something about how like regrets, like you did, you, I know you didn't want to have because of what happened with your mom when she passed away and you found that she had all these, I mean, essentially things undone and things that were regrets. And so regrets are really important to you. So regrets to we avoid them at all costs and also the re informative question mark.

Jodi Wellman
Yeah, it's so interesting. The informative part of it is more about when you do a dumb thing and you feel that pain of, oh, I shouldn't have said that thing in the meeting, or I shouldn't have invested all my money in that thing or whatever it is. It's called decision hygiene, which is a supremely boring term, but it does help us to course correct for later. Okay, cool.

But that goes back to what we talked about last time, which is that refers to the regrets of commission, like the things we do that we wish we hadn't. And the more insidious regrets though are the regrets of omission, which are those things that we wondered about and wanted to do, but didn't do. And that's what leads to that unique brand of discomfort later of, oh, but what could my life have been like? And so I actually love to dismiss pretty darn quickly the like, yeah, learn from your mistakes, learn from your lessons. And I don't even call those regrets anymore. I just call that like I'm alive, so I'm going to screw up and I hope I learn from it. But what I am more very suspicious of are those dreams that I'm deferring, the things that I, a choice I didn't make that I really wanted to make, or back to the proverbial deathbed regret question, like what would you wish you had done that you might've been maybe just chicken to do? That's ripe. Go pick that puppy, like go do it. Don't make it a regret. It's a pre-gret. It's still, it's still a baby. It's still a wee little chick in its shell and you don't have to let it become a regret. You can actually say like, wow, I did the thing. Like I went and I opened my business or I tried or I went online and I started, I was on the dating app or I came out of the closet or I did the thing. Like whatever it was, you get to still do it. And I think that's where the power is. Can I ask you?

Melanie Avalon
a super personal regret question that's just like flooding my mind right now. Yeah, because so you're married, you don't have kids.

Jodi Wellman
Do you want kids? We never did. And so there would be no regret on my list of not having them.

And I talked to a lot of people who may feel differently. And so I actually I usurped your question. Did you I just went going with that? What was your thought around that?

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, no, it's just really interesting because I definitely have this mindset now where I do think regrets are informative. Like if you're feeling that way, like what can you learn from it? But I also like, why have regrets? Because it's life and you can always do more incredible things.

The one thing where I'm like, this might be the regret that I am consciously choosing is I don't want kids. I just don't, it's a whole thing, but like, I don't know that I could, I don't know if it would fit with my life. Like I would want to be like the perfect mother and all the things. I don't know if I could do everything that I, it sounds so selfish, but I don't know if I could do everything that I want to do in life and have kids at the same time. Maybe if I was a man, that's a tangent. But in any case, I have heard that when it comes to choosing to have kids or not have kids, if you don't want to have kids, you don't have kids. It's fine and dandy, but then you will have that regret on your deathbed. Like when you're dying, you'll be like, I wish I had kids. So this is like when I hear the word regret, this is like the topic and I realized like we're coming to the first show, but I was just really curious because I realized you're also, you're married and you know, don't have kids. I was wondering if this was like a thing that you think about.

Jodi Wellman
Yeah, I think about it because it comes up a lot with others. And so just again, personally, it was never on our docket. We always made room for it. Just like, well, if we do change our minds, then let's not be idiots. Let's make room for it. And not just that, that knock never came.

So, but what I'm hearing you say, this is all just so sort of preliminary based on your comments, it's like, if all the data points you have right now are that it kind of feels like you don't, then the fear of what other people have said is also largely irrelevant, right? Like that would be the equivalent of categories of regrets include like connection, like the family stuff or boldness, which is where my cavity comes in. Like I would regret on my death bed, not being bolder with, you know, putting myself out there or asking for help or bothering people because I never want to bother anybody by asking for something. Oh my God. So, okay. Hi, well, that's, that's, that's show number seven we're going to do. But like, like, like it would be like, um, like I'm hearing you say, like, basically your regret requires you to change who you are. But as you start to change, if you start to feel down the road, like, wait a minute, maybe I really do want to fit a kid into this life that I'm living. If at that point you didn't take action, well, then that might turn into regret, but it would be no different than saying, wait a minute. Is it possible that I could get to the end and regret not starting a business, but wait a minute, I did that. You know, like, like it doesn't even seem like it's really relevant to you right now, other than the wondering will I feel different later, but you're not giving yourself credit for all the noticing and the self-awareness you actually very clearly have so three years from now you could do a gut check and be like, I have maternal instincts that are overriding my desire to stay up at night and do show notes for my podcast. And if that's the case, well, then you have a decision point. And then that point you can say, well, I regret it. You know what I mean? But like, like anticipating regret that maybe is common. I don't know if I hear that in you. I don't know. I think you're too self-aware. Yeah, that's what I hear, but I'm curious what other people are hearing. Awesome. you

Melanie Avalon
Well, I would love to dive into more, but we can save that for part three. I'll give you like a teaser though.

So when I asked what's one unforgettable experience you think everyone should try. I got dozens of answers. The majority of them all involved one topic. Do you want to guess what that topic was? I just found this really interesting.

Jodi Wellman
No, I'm like, I'm completely out to lunch. What is Involve? Like four?

Melanie Avalon
of them said it all related to this. So Karen, parasailing, Carissa, a discovery flying lesson.

Anna, I'm planning to go skydiving for a milestone birthday. D, helicopter. Everybody wants to fly is the takeaway.

Jodi Wellman
You know, what is so funny, I was going to throw out there skydiving as just like a random thing, which also is flying in the sky. I can't not go there.

This will be a teaser, but it was just a little more juice. There is really cool research about bucket lists and about potential regrets. And so there, it's so cool to me, like you just eat it up. And there is so much out there about one of the number one things like adventure and doing something that feels like it is this personal journey, like a big personal goal that feels like it's just shaking up your life. A lot of people are yearning for that. And yet there's a juxtaposition that is really a tension point because many of us are organized, responsible people that are also very planful and we don't necessarily like things that are spontaneous or unsafe.

And yet we live this life that's like bubbling up inside of us, maybe like the freaking bubbles of the rice pot wanting to come off where we do something just a little bit crazy. And so maybe there's contained craziness. I don't know. Maybe there's a way to do this.

Melanie Avalon
Amazing. Well, actually similar, Amy said, hiked to the top of a mountain but not on the trail. Quote, it's hard, but so rewarding. I feel like that's like the vibe of what you just said.

Oh my goodness. This was amazing. Jodi, thank you so much. I think listeners can see now why I'm obsessed with you, not in a weird, like weird, creepy stalker way, but thank you so much. You are literally changing people's lives. Like I said, when I think of you, you're the vibe that I wish I could just like take like distill into a substance and like putting people not in like a, not in a creepy way, like a bottle of water.

Jodi Wellman
wine? Yeah. Yeah. You know, I want your, you know what, I would want your vintage as well. We're going to make one heck of a blend.

I don't know, but thank you. Your compliment, it lands so much because everybody listening is like, Oh my God, like you're the best. So thank you. You bring the best out of people that have conversations with you. That's your gift and you create a liveness. So I am just like, I'm, I'm bowing down to you. Thanks for this chance to come back and chat. I just, I'm, I'm, I'm a fan for life.

Melanie Avalon
so much equal bowing down. We'll have to do it again soon. And yes, so hopefully talk soon. This was amazing.

Jodi Wellman
Deal. Okay. And by the way, I hope everybody's raising a glass cheers to life. We get to be here

Melanie Avalon
I know. I know. It's amazing. Take it in. Cheers.

Cheers. For real. All right. Have a good evening. Bye. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast. For more information and resources, you can check out my book, What Win Wine, as well as my supplement line, Avalon X. Please visit melanieavalon.com to learn more about today's guests and always feel free to contact me at contact at melanieavalon.com and always remember, you got this.