In our endless hustle for productivity and achievement, we often lose sight of what truly makes life meaningful. Karen Salmansohn, bestselling author and behaviour change expert, challenges this mindset in her powerful new book, Your To Die For Life: How to Maximize Joy and Minimize Regret Before Your Time Runs Out. Her central message is both confronting and liberating: thinking about death may be exactly what we need to start living more fully.
Why We Avoid Talking About Death
Death is still one of society’s last taboo topics. We’ll openly debate politics, religion, or relationships, but mention personal mortality and people quickly change the subject. This avoidance is no accident — psychologists call it “terror management,” our instinct to push away thoughts of our inevitable end.
Yet humans are unique: we’re the only species aware of our finite existence. And, as Salmansohn argues, this awareness doesn’t need to be paralysing — it can be our greatest advantage.
Mortality Awareness as Motivation
When embraced consciously, death becomes less morbid and more motivating. Salmansohn calls this mortality awareness — an understanding that sparks urgency, and urgency drives meaningful action. Without the reality of a “dead-line,” we would endlessly postpone the things that matter most: writing that book, repairing strained relationships, or telling someone we love them.
From Beast Mode to Best Mode
Salmansohn’s wake-up call came after the loss of her father nearly twenty years ago. That grief transformed her from “beast mode” workaholism into what she now calls “best mode” — a balanced, intentional way of living that prioritises relationships and joy. In a beautiful twist of fate, her son was born four years later on the exact date her father died, which she describes as a “wink from the universe.”
Writing Your Eulogy & Creating a To-Die List
In Your To Die For Life, Salmansohn introduces practical tools to help readers live with purpose. One of the most powerful is writing your own eulogy — not to be morbid, but to illuminate the gap between how you’re living now and how you want to be remembered.
She then invites readers to replace the typical to-do list with a to-die list: not tasks for productivity, but daily practices aligned with your deepest values. While you can spend decades checking off to-dos, you might still reach the end of life feeling unfulfilled. The to-die list ensures your daily actions reflect what matters most — love, connection, service, joy, and authenticity.
Identity-Based Habits & Lasting Change
Grounded in behavior change psychology, Salmansohn’s framework emphasises identity-based habits. Instead of relying on willpower, she suggests connecting behaviours to values you already claim as part of your identity. For example, rather than forcing herself to eat healthily through discipline, she linked it to her value of discernment: “I am a discerning person, so I eat healthy foods.” This approach not only sustained change but created ripple effects throughout her life.
Living Without Regret
Salmansohn also reverse-engineered the most common deathbed regrets to identify seven core values that protect us from reaching the end of life with “if onlys”:
Authenticity
Bravery
Curiosity
Discernment
Empathic Love
Fun
Gratitude
By embodying these values daily, we can avoid regrets like working too hard, neglecting relationships, or failing to live true to ourselves.
Escaping Near-Life Experiences
Perhaps the most eye-opening concept in Your To Die For Life is what Salmansohn calls near-life experiences — those moments when we’re physically present but mentally elsewhere, lost in distraction, scrolling endlessly, or deferring joy to an imagined “someday.”
The antidote is presence, purpose, and courage: choosing to fully live now, rather than waiting for a perfect moment that may never come.
Final Thoughts
Karen Salmansohn’s Your To Die For Life is not about fearing death — it’s about using mortality awareness as a catalyst for a joyful, regret-free, and deeply meaningful life. It’s an invitation to stop chasing productivity and start cultivating purpose.
💫 Don’t wait until the end of your life to realise what truly matters. Begin today.
🎧 Listen to my full conversation with Karen Salmansohn on Life, Health & The Universe — and discover how to create your own to-die-for life.
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