A Perspective on a Life Well Lived

actually the clearest way to understand how to live?

In this episode, Megan reflects on how early encounters with loss shaped the way she sees life, purpose, and impact. A discussion of moments that forced her to confront a truth many of us try to ignore: none of us know how much time we actually have. 

Instead of letting that truth create fear, this conversation explores how it can create clarity.

What does it really mean to live a big life?
Is impact measured by achievement, titles, and accolades?
Or is it found in the quieter moments of showing up for the people around us?

Sometimes the most meaningful lives are lived in the same town, with the same people, showing up again and again with presence, kindness, and genuine care. 

This episode is an invitation to pause and reflect on the life you are building.

Are you chasing the things that truly matter?
Are you showing up for the people who matter most?
And when the end eventually comes, will you feel like you truly lived?

This is a conversation about impact, community, and the quiet ways our lives shape others.

Because a meaningful life is not defined by how impressive it looks on paper.
It is defined by the people whose lives are better because you were in them.

For more conversations like this and to connect with a community of women building purposeful lives and businesses, visit innatewomen.com.

Welcome to the table

Transcript

0:34

I think about death often in terms more of what it really means to live. This seems really morbid and people do not like when I share this with them. I can see that in their reaction. It's often shocked or very judgmental on why would you live your life thinking about death, but. I was introduced to death at a younger age and it's really impacted me. When I was in fifth grade, it was in the summer and I went to go visit my great-grandmother, my mom colleges in a nursing home, and my sister and I raced to the door and we bounded into the room and there was my grandmother. Without a life, it was just her vessel. And the nurse came in quickly and said, oh, you know, we, we didn't catch you in time. And they didn't tell us that she had passed away. And so my sister and I found her there. I've never asked my sister on how that might've impacted her. We process things very differently, but for me, it's impacted me greatly. That was the very first time that I saw a body without a life and this idea that we can have so much energy and essence in us and then. Just to suddenly not have that any longer. And she was old and it was, it was definitely her time, but just the idea of a person laying there and this person was my grandmother, but also was not my grandmother. She was no longer there. She was not able to obviously interact, but as a, as a child, you know. You see this and there's such a big difference between a person alive and a person who's not just the vessel that's there. we live in a society where we don't interact with death. We don't see bodies. if you go back over 150 years ago, in almost every culture there was an interaction with the person who passed away. Different cultures have customs wear. Bodies would be laid out of the household. And there was this, this way of observing and saying goodbye to that person who was very greatly in your life So when we don't have that, and the interactions we have with death are so fleeting, to be honest, and there's not much discussion about it, because when I do openly say I think about death, often people are shocked and appalled because the relationship with death is in such a term of fear and terrified of it. But when I think about death, I think of it in terms of what it really means to live. When I was in eighth grade, my grandmother died. And she was such a matriarch and important person in our family that her death, literally when we look back on the history of our family, shifted every single person's life, who was in our immediate family or in her immediate family. Um, and her direct lineage had a huge impact in the way that their entire trajectory of their life went because of her death. So the thing is, nobody thought she was gonna be the first to go. Everybody thought it was gonna be my grandfather. He had, he had prostate cancer for years, and he wasn't really good at taking care of himself and he enjoyed alcohol on the, on the weekends and the evenings. And he did not particularly eat healthy and yet. He lives until his eighties. The thing is about death, it's unpredictable. We never know when it's going to happen, and we like to think that all of us are gonna get to be the ones that live until we are so old. And then we finally have our bodies and our minds give out together, and we peacefully go in to the unknown, but. From my experience, that's not how it happens. When I was 26, my father got sick and we took him to the hospital and now he had had bouts of things that were wrong with him on and off, but we didn't really think this was gonna be any different than the other times. He'd be sick and then he'd heal, and then we'd all move on. But this time was different. He went into the hospital and nine days later he died. It wasn't a peaceful death. He didn't want to go. He wasn't ready. So many of us are gonna get to the end of our lives and look back and go, wow, I wish I didn't play so safe. I wish that I chased the dreams or I wrote the book, or I did the things that I think about all the time, and I never did. I wish I had the harder conversations and kept relationships, and I wish I should have bigger in my life. I wish I showed up for the people that matter to me. And that's the reality of a lot of people. Many people die with regret. Even people you might look at from the outside and say they lived with a good life, but a lot of us aren't living with the idea of death on our minds. And so this week what I observed was my great aunt passing on and she was a very well known member of our community, um, and impacted a lot of lives. But I still see somebody who finished life with Dreams unsaid. Watching someone pass on reminds me often and forces me into a reflection of how many people pass on with dreams unrealized as this has greatly impacted my life, I, I wanna have a conversation of what it means to be impactful and. I wanna have a conversation today on what it means to not squander the opportunities that we have here in life. One of my favorite quotes is Mother Teresa's, if you wanna change the world, go home and love your family. When we think of what it means to live a big life, people often think in terms of superheroes. They wanna be somebody who makes a big impact. And we think of a big impact. And we also think of big actions running into a burning building and saving a family or. Being the superhero at a car accident, or if there's this wild emergency, we're gonna be the one to show up and save the day. But that's just not how life works. Hopefully for many of us, we don't have a lot of emergencies. We don't have the opportunities to run into these fires and these car accidents and, and be the hero that we all wish, and then that's gonna define what it looks like. You know, the movies have really lied to us in this way because life is really found in the small moments so often I think people might hear us say things like, we are gonna live, we want you to live a big life. And they think in terms of wild travel and the adventures of, of going out and doing the hardest things. And, and that's part of it. You know, there's, if that's one of your dreams, is to live an adventurous life, that's one of mine. Um, not doing that would be, would be me not living up to my full potential and dreams in this world. But that's not. That's not the way to define what it means to be a big life. I look at it as a big life is defined by the willingness to show up in the hard times, to build community, and to show up for your family, to have those hard conversations, to keep good relationships, and to impact every person's life that you come in contact with. And for today, that's what we're gonna talk about. What does it mean to be impactful in someone's life? Because. My Aunt Becky, and if you're listening to this, you know her. Um, I think people, you always get to know a certain size of it, and a lot of people might know her from more of a public view. She was a, uh, gym teacher at our local Catholic school for 41 years, so she saw and met a lot of people and then after that she really spent a lot of time volunteering and spending time at. Federer Community Center. She helped out the farm at La La Acres for a number of years, and, She really impacted a lot of people's lives. But if you look at, from the outside, if we name some things down on paper, you might look at this person's life from the outside and say, did they do anything? Did they make a difference? She was born in Federica and she lived in Federica her entire life. She had the same job for 41 years, um, where she wasn't wildly ambitious in it. She liked showing up and being a gym teacher. But at the same time, she didn't really take care of her body and she was, uh, morbidly obese while also being a physical education teacher now, it is a little different than it is today. This was through the seventies, eighties and nineties, that she held this role. On paper she. Didn't really get much of an education, didn't really pursue much, and didn't really live a big ambitious life. And for many people who might be listening to this, it's often gonna be ambitious women. And we're told in today's society that achievement is everything, right? We live in a world where what you can put on your resume is going to show how much of an impact and how great of a person you are. She never got to travel. She didn't see the world. She rarely saw even the United States. Um, she knew the same people for most of her life, and she did almost always the same routine. But the impact she made is an impact all of us could only wish to make in our lives. She, as the gym teacher. Was potentially the most beloved teacher that came through Holy Cross. The thing that's so interesting about it is she made such an impact at in her career that the gym is now named after her. When you go there, it's my aunt's name that is on that building. And when you look at the impact that she made, you think, well, of course everybody likes Jim. It's everyone's favorite class, but. Yeah, gym's everyone's favorite class, but the gym teacher wasn't everyone's favorite teacher. The thing that she did, I had her as a teacher growing up and when I'm reflecting on what she did that was different is as a child, I was really shy and, uh, despite loving podcasting now I did not like talking to adults and I was terrified of them. And, but she was a safe adult and she made you feel so seen for exactly who you are. There was never a judgment. There was never please be more or go achieve these things or make sure you're getting these great grades.'cause that's gonna define who you are, which is often the undercurrent when you're a child, especially at a school or especially in families where people expect you to do great things. The only expectation she had was that you were happy. And you are having fun in life. That's what she wanted. And as a child, when you have an adult that looks at you and is just like accepting you exactly how, how you are, you feel so seen in a way that other adults can't make you feel seen. And so as a result, her students, including myself, I. Looked forward to Jim. We're so wildly excited to go and spend time around someone who just made you feel so good about just being you and who you are. That changed children's lives for 41 years. She made children feel wildly accepted and wildly proud of who they are. Kids felt like they could go do anything and be exactly who they're, they could joke around. They felt comfortable with the emotions they might be feeling or the, the play that they're having. They were able to laugh without any, any judgment. And we see that theme show up in her life over and over, and we de dive deeper. See, one of the things she did, instead of going out and saying, I'm gonna change the world by creating something and inventing something, she made people feel seen and that they belong. She had a very special ability. To connect with people, and when she talked to you, she was genuinely interested. She wanted to know everything that was going on in your lives. How many times do you talk to someone who actually cares? How many times do you have a conversation with someone and you're actually caring about the questions and how they answer them? How many times do you have a conversation with someone and you know that they genuinely care about the answer to the questions they're asking you? In today's world, some of it's being done outta politeness and a lot of people feel really lonely in a way they've never felt before. We have less community than ever before in today's world. My Aunt Becky would sit with you for hours and talk to you, and she would ask you questions the time you were with it, and she would joke around and she would find a way to connect with you even when she was in the hospital. Um, all the nurses were wonderful, except for one was a little. Rude when she came in, and I remember thinking when she was talking to us and answering our questions, I was like, this is not my favorite nurse right now. And when she turned her back, even while my Aunt Becky was laying in her bed, she made this silly face like, yeah, we're all seeing this together. We're here. And it was playful and it was fun. And your guard just naturally comes down around her. And so people of every single walks of life loved connecting with her. They loved being around her and in her presence because she made people feel seen. She listened to them and they felt love in her presence. And she did that every single place she went. The impact that she made is on thousands of people's lives. Her passing is gonna be devastating for so many people. And we always think about, oh, I wanna make such an impact in my life, or I wanna go out and and see what I can create here. And I think so many people are forgetting that when it comes to life. It's not necessarily always about going out into the world. Sometimes it's about staying in the world that you're born into, and it's about showing up for the people around you in your community. No matter what community you're in, no matter what path of life you're on, if you wanna make a big impact in your life, you should be showing up for the people around you.'cause in impact. Is about the lives that you're influencing. It's about the people who are, are feeling seen and heard because of your presence. So my Aunt Becky, maybe on paper, especially if you're looking at from a traditional achievement point of view, I wouldn't necessarily classify her in the sense that she fits in the traditional. Stance. And yet with her life, she made more of an impact than any of you probably will. And I'm not saying that in a mean way because I want everybody to make an impact. That's part of the reasons we're having these conversations, is so we can provoke thoughts that will provoke action, that will then lead to lives that are changed. And if you're somebody who I feel like you're getting caught up in life and you're saying, I really wanna make an impact. I'm trying. I'm working so hard. But yet, the hard work is taking away from the people in your life that matter, from your families, from your friends, from your children. Is that the impact you wanna make in life? And I think we need to be really clear on what we want out of this world. What kind of impact? Who do we wanna impact? Is it our community? You can impact your community exactly where you're at, and you can start by sitting down and having a conversation. And genuinely getting to know the people around you and genuinely caring about them. These are the lessons to be learned, and this is why we think about death, because when we put life in perspective of this is our one shot and it'll be over and we cannot predict it, we can't predict how we're gonna go and we cannot predict when, but we can. Show up in life differently. We can choose to slow down and be purposeful in our actions. We can choose to slow down and be intentional in the community we meet and the impact we have, and we can learn from those that have passed on before us. What are the things they did amazing in life and what do you think that they wish that they, they did differently? We don't have to go through life and learn from our own lessons. We can learn from others. If you have had somebody who's passed on your life, I think reflecting on what their life meant and how they showed up and what you can learn from them and take from them and showing up better in our lives. And we can also look at a. What did they wish that they did differently? Where were their regrets? And we can also learn from those. And so, although this might not be the kind of podcast or the topic, people are really comfortable listening. I just wanna thank you for showing up at the table on this episode during a harder week for me, but also just having the harder conversations.'cause these are the things that start to project us into the life we really wanna live. Thank you for joining me,