Do you know what the dying regret most about their life?

What do you think you’ll regret when you die?

A palliative care nurse, Bronnie, shared a powerful finding from her experiences caring for the dying in a 2009 blog post. She had made it a practice, over the years, to ask them, “What is your biggest regret in life?” Her blog was about their five most common regrets.

What do you think is number one on that list? Let me first tell you what it is not. It is not, like what most people imagine, “I wish I had worked less,” “I wish I had spent more time with family,” “I wish I had been more successful,” or “I wish I could leave behind a better legacy.”

Instead, it is “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

It is as though you have been toiling, year upon year, to be an accomplished actor on the stage of life, under the watchful gaze of an audience whose validation you ardently seek — an audience that includes your parents, siblings, partner, children, friends, mentors, associates, superiors, the media and the community. The curtain falls and you stride back onstage, hoping for a standing ovation, but as you take your final bow and the crowd fades away, you suddenly realize that there is only one person whose applause you have hungered for: yourself.

Your society, family and friends will often encourage you to pursue the path of outer success, one which at the time of your passing would make the world proclaim, “This was a life well lived!” But Bronnie Ware points us to the path of inner success, one which would make you proclaim, “This was a life well lived.”

Consciously or unconsciously, we are all seeking outer success and inner success.

We want to be approved, admired and adored, but we also simply want to be authentic to our own needs and desires. When we experience an alignment between our outer ambitions and our inner self, we feel energized, committed, at peace, fulfilled, integrated, understood and validated for who we are. Our inner and outer worlds are in harmony. This is the essence of Principle 1.

But finding that harmony requires work.

Take a moment to reflect. Have you ever felt like you were choosing success at the expense of your values or sense of purpose?

We at Mentora are striving to build a path and a community devoted to this most central question: how can you gain outer success while also staying true to yourself? Through this newsletter, I’ll offer you inspiration and guidance to help you pave that harmonious path in your life.

Next week, we’ll explore what it takes to pursue inner success — to be true to ourselves. Turns out, most of us get it wrong.

Note: Parts of this newsletter are excerpted from my book, Inner Mastery, Outer Impact: How Your 5 Core Energies Hold the Key to Success.