A Sweet Conversation About Dying with Death Doula Alua Arthur | A Bit of Optimism Podcast

Simon Sinek 0:00 What is the most interesting secret or story you've ever heard somebody tell you on their death bed?

Alua Arthur 0:04 I've heard so many secrets.

Simon Sinek 0:06 Oh, tell one. What's your favorite? Come on, come on.

Alua Arthur 0:09 Um, about the kids, about mistresses.

Simon Sinek 0:11 The kids.

Alua Arthur 0:12 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 0:12 Other families.

Alua Arthur 0:13 About like other families. There's so many other families. So many other families. And I think that 23andMe and ancestry.com and all those places, we're about to find out a whole lot of families.

Simon Sinek 0:23 That's right. [laughs] It's all coming out.

Alua Arthur 0:25 Yeah. Nobody's dying with secrets anymore. [both laughing]

Simon Sinek 0:29 Let's talk about death, dying, being dead. Those words are so jarring, literally just hearing them make many of us squirm. It's such a morbid conversation. Who wants to have it? Or maybe we're thinking about it the wrong way. That's where Alua Arthur comes in. She's flipping the script. She's a New York Times bestselling author and one of the leading death doulas. Like a doula helps some people prepare for birth, death doulas help other people navigate life's final chapter with clarity and grace. But for those of us who aren't currently in the process of dying and aren't navigating grief, thinking about death may actually be the best hack to focus on life. This is A Bit of Optimism. [upbeat music] So I'm always fascinated by people's career paths, right?

Alua Arthur 1:27 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 1:28 Doctors and lawyers tend to know pretty young that they're gonna be a doctor and lawyer 'cause you have to make a decision, you know, pretty young to start going through that amount of schooling, et cetera. And I have to believe that being a death doula wasn't like your childhood dreams. You weren't helping your teddy bears take their final breaths. I'm so curious how someone finds themself doing this.

Alua Arthur 1:49 It was a sharp right turn. I was a lawyer.

Simon Sinek 1:53 [laughs]

Alua Arthur 1:53 I started out on the path of lawyer, so I did all the schooling and took the bar and started practicing and was not having a good time. It was not working for me. It wasn't a fit. And I also just felt frustrated, and still do, that we ask young people to choose their profession so early in their lives, you know, and like commit to something, something with the big financial responsibility of law school. I'll put that as a side. But I was a lawyer, and then life came and worked its magic on me, and grief worked its magic on me, and here we are. I'm practicing death work instead.

Simon Sinek 2:23 So did you start in grief work and find yourself to death work, or do you, do you talk about them, or is that one thing?

Alua Arthur 2:28 To me, they're inexorably linked. You know, they belong together.

Simon Sinek 2:32 Right.

Alua Arthur 2:32 They can be separate though, because grief doesn't exist only with death. But you know, it's like an open marriage where death is married to grief and monogamous with grief, but grief is super polyamorous and goes wherever it wants to. [laughs] Yeah. So when talking about death, I can't help but talk about grief. But I'm mostly talking about-

Simon Sinek 2:48 But I mean your, but the way you got in, like what came, what was, what was the chicken, what was the egg? I guess that doesn't help resolve the problem because that's actually a debate. But you know, for, in, in the actual way and thick [laughs] the way things worked out, like what happened?

Alua Arthur 3:00 Yeah. Well, what happened-

Simon Sinek 3:01 What happened that you're doing what you're doing now?

Alua Arthur 3:03 Okay. So I was-

Simon Sinek 3:04 I didn't even know death doula was a thing.

Alua Arthur 3:05 It's super a thing. So I was practicing law at Legal Aid. I got really burnt out, absolutely depressed, and like a clinical depression. And I took a leave of absence where I went to Cuba and I met a young fellow, fellow traveler on the bus. We started talking a lot about her life and we started talking about death. She was traveling because she wanted to see the top six places in the world before she died 'cause she had uterine cancer. And so that initial spark was like, "Oh wait, hold on a minute. People die?" And I'd been privileged enough in my life not to have known anybody who died. All my grandparents were dead by the time I was of age. Uh, so nobody close to me had died. I hadn't had that experience yet. And I was really fascinated that she was looking at the end of her life or at least contemplating it. So we talked a lot about her relationship to her death. I asked her a lot about her life and what meaning it had and what she'd made of it thus far. And it helped me look at my own life through some lens that I hadn't previously considered. And that lens helped me see that I did not like the life, the life that I was living. Like it wasn't, it wasn't what I'd wanted out of my life, you know?

Simon Sinek 4:06 Mm-hmm.

Alua Arthur 4:06 So I, on the bus, was like, "Well, shoot, if we can talk about this and it can create purpose for people like it did for me during that very brief exchange that we had about our mortality..." Well, it was 14 hours. It wasn't brief. But in that one moment of time-

Simon Sinek 4:21 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm

Alua Arthur 4:22 ... then it held so much, it held so much weight for me. And so I started really leaning into that for myself. When I came back from Cuba, my brother-in-law became sick, my older sister's husband. His name was Peter St. John. And I got to journey with him through the last two months of his life really, really closely. And I saw how isolating it is to be, uh, dying, to be in the system and not have the support there that we needed. You know, there were plenty of doctors, there were plenty of medical folks, but there wasn't somebody just to hold our hearts and to, you know, remind us that it was hard and to offer resources and a kind word and a listening heart. There was nobody like that. And so I really decided that I wanted to do that for other people. So grief came first in the way that I was grieving deeply. I was grieving my brother-in-law.

Simon Sinek 5:10 Mm-hmm.

Alua Arthur 5:10 But I was also grieving a system that I didn't feel cared for the people within it. And so grief pushed me into death work ultimately.

Simon Sinek 5:18 So, so the, the job that you described or the role that you played, I should say, you know, with your brother-in-law, I mean, you were the sister-in-law.

Alua Arthur 5:24 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 5:24 So you were family sitting by his side as the doctors and everybody came in and through. And I think perhaps the reason that the concept of a death doula is not on the tip of everyone's tongue is because I guess there's an expectation that that's what the family does.

Alua Arthur 5:39 Yeah. It's kind of what the family does, but we're also so deeply emotionally entrenched in what's happening that it's hard to pull back. It's hard to take my feelings out of it and be able to show up for the dying person the way that they need to. The death doula is somebody who sits on the outside of the circle of support. Sometimes it's family, but not everybody, uh, has a family around.

Simon Sinek 6:00 Right.

Alua Arthur 6:00 So it could just be, you know, folks that love the person or their chosen families that are around. And so the doula is kind of the person that sits on the outer rung, kind of holding everybody else up and holding the whole thing to-Together. There are-- There's a number of things that death doulas do that family members, I think, don't know how to do or wouldn't even know where to begin, and that's where I found myself with Peter often. Like, how do we do this thing? Is this a thing we should be considering? I wish that there was so much more we'd known at the time. His death would've looked a little different.

Simon Sinek 6:27 For, for example, so what was missing when, when Peter died that you wished you knew or had been there?

Alua Arthur 6:33 I wish somebody had said very clearly to us that he was dying. That didn't happen.

Simon Sinek 6:37 What?

Alua Arthur 6:37 It was more that they couldn't treat him anymore. So there was a lot of-

Simon Sinek 6:40 That's what-- Say this is, uh, that, that-- What, what-- May I ask, h- what was it that ultimately caused his death?

Alua Arthur 6:45 [lips smack] Uh, Burkitt's lymphoma.

Simon Sinek 6:47 Okay. So-

Alua Arthur 6:48 Yeah

Simon Sinek 6:48 ... and nobody said he's going to die. They said this is no longer treatable? Like they used-

Alua Arthur 6:52 They said we can't treat him anymore

Simon Sinek 6:53 ... they spoke in euphemisms to, to avoid the D word?

Alua Arthur 6:55 Everybody danced around it. The palliative care team came in. They would, like, nod and smile slowly when it was clear that something was happening when he was not responding anymore. Uh, A plus B equals C, you know, he has an incurable illness. They cannot treat him anymore. He's going to die. But I did that, you know. I did that in my own brain and my own body, and it was really, really difficult to take in because it was also the unimaginable.

Simon Sinek 7:19 Mm.

Alua Arthur 7:19 And I think anybody who's been in this situation understands when it's somebody close to you and they're getting close to the end, it's like, this can't be it. Like, this cannot possibly be it. And so aside from just somebody saying very clearly, "Hey, it looks like he's dying," they could have helped us find ways to, uh, engage my four-year-old niece at the time into his, into his death. You know, we didn't-

Simon Sinek 7:41 Mm

Alua Arthur 7:41 ... have support for that properly. Nobody explained what the death rally was, which is something that I noticed in Peter and I've seen many times before and many times since in my work. Nobody explained how we could find certain hospital gowns that closed in the front because he had all these sores on his back or getting him up to change the gowns was difficult.

Simon Sinek 8:00 Mm.

Alua Arthur 8:00 Getting his will in order, trying to figure out-

Simon Sinek 8:02 Mm

Alua Arthur 8:02 ... what he wanted to do with his cremains. Like, there were so many items that I wish that we'd known beforehand that we just didn't have.

Simon Sinek 8:08 What's a death rally?

Alua Arthur 8:10 A death rally is often a surge of energy nearing the end of life that often looks like the miracle that people have been waiting for, but in fact, it's a sign that life will soon reach its end. I think it may be the body shedding off the last little bit of life force energy, but the person often starts behaving like they did before. Maybe they're making jokes or asking for food or asking to see certain people. Um, they look a little bit more robust than they have, and it typically happens right before the person begins to actively die.

Simon Sinek 8:43 Is-- Do the doctors and the palliative care, uh, specialists, are they avoiding the D word because there's some weird stigma? Uh, is, is the word death or die, is it too aggressive? 'Cause we do, we do, at least in the West, you know, we speak, we speak around it, right? Like, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry for your, for your father's passing." You know? "What happened to your, your, you know, your, your brother-in-law?" "He, he's no longer with us." We don't like the, the D word. We don't say, "Oh, yeah, he died a bunch of years ago," or, um, uh, "Yeah, yeah, he's dead." You know? It's-

Alua Arthur 9:12 Yeah

Simon Sinek 9:12 ... it, it is a very sudden-- Even the, the D, the, it's a hard consonant, right? [chuckles] It's a-

Alua Arthur 9:17 Yeah. [chuckles]

Simon Sinek 9:17 ... it's an aggressive word.

Alua Arthur 9:19 Totally.

Simon Sinek 9:20 W- So I, you know, why is it that even medical professionals are so afraid of using that word? Is it because they've triggered families before, and they've just learned over time not to use the word?

Alua Arthur 9:29 I think there's a lot of different reasons for it. That may be part of it.

Simon Sinek 9:32 'Cause you don't call yourself a, like, end-of-life doula.

Alua Arthur 9:35 No, I don't.

Simon Sinek 9:35 It's a death doula.

Alua Arthur 9:36 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 9:36 Yeah.

Alua Arthur 9:36 I don't. There are many that call themselves end-of-life doulas or end-of-life specialists or practitioners-

Simon Sinek 9:41 Right, right, right, right

Alua Arthur 9:42 ... but, you know, I'm kind of a straight shooter. Like, what you see is what you get, and people die. Uh, it is a big word, one syllable that lands like an anvil, but it really, it holds a lot of truths that many of us seek to avoid, and I think doctors and medical professionals are also human. You know-

Simon Sinek 9:57 Mm

Alua Arthur 9:57 ... I think that on some level, there isn't enough training in hospitals or training in medical school about dealing with people nearing the end of life.

Simon Sinek 10:04 Mm.

Alua Arthur 10:05 I think that oftentimes folks want to have saved the person. They want-

Simon Sinek 10:10 Mm

Alua Arthur 10:10 ... the medicine to work, and maybe it feels like a failure of some sort. I think as long as we think of death as the opposite of health or we think of death as a failure in some way, the folks that are meant to cure folks will always have a hard time with it. But then also societally, we shy away from it, like you were saying. We speak in euphemism about it. Pass away. Somebody lost somebody. And one of the times recently, somebody said that to me, not in the context of work, so I did not have my death doula hat on, but she said she'd lost someone, and I thought, like, she couldn't find her. I didn't realize she meant she died, you know?

Simon Sinek 10:44 Mm.

Alua Arthur 10:44 Uh, it's tricky. I wish that we would be a lot more straight about it.

Simon Sinek 10:48 Mm. I wonder where-- I wonder if we're all overly sensitive because we don't want to offend the people we're talking to, or is it that we're offended by the word?

Alua Arthur 10:57 I think we're offended by the word.

Simon Sinek 10:57 Are we tiptoeing around a sensitive subject and being overly cautious? It's like a, a weird end-of-life political correctness.

Alua Arthur 11:04 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 11:04 You know? We're all tiptoeing around for fear of offending somebody, so we go the m- the most sort of euphemistic way.

Alua Arthur 11:10 Right.

Simon Sinek 11:10 When in reality, if you just say what it is, everybody's actually okay with it.

Alua Arthur 11:15 And much better with it, in fact, if you just say what it is. Now-

Simon Sinek 11:18 Yeah

Alua Arthur 11:18 ... I've noticed that sometimes it takes family members or the people close to the person that died a while to come around to it because it is so final. It sounds so final.

Simon Sinek 11:27 Yeah.

Alua Arthur 11:27 And yet, we, I think, do everybody a favor when we just call it fl- plainly for what it is. You know, when we speak in euphemisms, we also run the risk of continuing to pass on our death avoidance and our death phobia in culture, particularly when talking to children. There was a guy I talked to not that long ago who told me that when his grandmother died, they told him that Grandma had gone to sleep. He was terrified to sleep for years. He was seven when she died.

Simon Sinek 11:51 Mm.

Alua Arthur 11:52 Terrified to go to sleep because he thought he wouldn't come back either, you know?

Simon Sinek 11:56 Mm.

Alua Arthur 11:56 Thereby reinforcing the idea that it's something that we don't talk about, something that we don't address, something that we put over there. We don't say somebody died. We say they went to heaven or they went away for a long time, or you won't be seeing her anymore. We cause-... more confusion and we, we reiterate death phobia in our culture.

Simon Sinek 12:14 It's so interesting, especially when it comes to children, right? You're so right, because we don't upset the child, and yet you can watch cartoons from the '50s like-

Alua Arthur 12:23 Listen

Simon Sinek 12:23 ... "Bambi."

Alua Arthur 12:24 It's wild.

Simon Sinek 12:25 And there's death all over these cartoons.

Alua Arthur 12:28 Everywhere.

Simon Sinek 12:28 And like these are for little children, and they're-- And none of them, you know, I don't think anybody would say that a Walt Disney film caused some sort of lifelong trauma.

Alua Arthur 12:37 Yeah. But like I cried big grown-up tears at "Moana" very recently when the grandmother died. Spoiler alert. But we're, we're-- Children are watching these films, and they have their own relationship with death and grief and loss-

Simon Sinek 12:51 Yeah

Alua Arthur 12:51 ... either through the films or in their own lives, or their grandparents die, or their parents die, or their siblings. Like they, they know the experience, and yet adults, we try to shield them from it, I'm using air quotes, but they know it. And when we don't address it, it creates a strange cognitive dissonance.

Simon Sinek 13:06 Yeah.

Alua Arthur 13:06 It also sends forth the message that it's not okay.

Simon Sinek 13:10 Mm.

Alua Arthur 13:10 Whereas it's just a part of the cycle of life, you know? We all are part of the cycle. We all will meet our end at some point.

Simon Sinek 13:16 How, how... Are you afraid of death?

Alua Arthur 13:18 I wouldn't say afraid. I'm curious about it. I'm very curious about it. There are things that-

Simon Sinek 13:22 Like if you're on a plane-

Alua Arthur 13:23 Yeah

Simon Sinek 13:23 ... and there's really bad turbulence, you know, do you have fear of death, like fear of dying, you know? Or are you totally relaxed and you're like, "Well, if this is my time, this is my time"?

Alua Arthur 13:33 I feel more like if it's my time, it's my time. But I've also spent a lot of time thinking about my death-

Simon Sinek 13:38 Right

Alua Arthur 13:38 ... and preparing for my mortality, you know? But there are things that still make me a little uncomfortable about it. I am so deeply in love right now, and it would, I would really, really, really like to see elderhood with this man, and I think about him dying and it makes me want to cry.

Simon Sinek 13:53 Mm-hmm.

Alua Arthur 13:54 Uh, so sometimes that fear of death lives in somebody else, you know?

Simon Sinek 13:58 Mm-hmm.

Alua Arthur 13:58 I'm maybe not afraid of my own mortality that way. I would love to see elderhood with him.

Simon Sinek 14:02 Mm-hmm.

Alua Arthur 14:02 But also I don't want him to die either. That's the fear of death that's showing its head.

Simon Sinek 14:07 Who hires you? Does the family hire you or does the person dying hire you?

Alua Arthur 14:10 It depends.

Simon Sinek 14:11 Does the hospital hire you?

Alua Arthur 14:12 It depends. Never a hospital, or at least not yet. But often the family members or the circle of support or the person themselves, because sometimes we're not there for the person that's dying. Sometimes we're there for the circle of support, like they need an additional hand-

Simon Sinek 14:26 Right

Alua Arthur 14:27 ... or they need some information or some comprehensive end-of-life planning.

Simon Sinek 14:32 Yeah.

Alua Arthur 14:32 I also wanna be clear that death doulas work with anybody who has some recognition of their mortality, which means that when somebody is still healthy, we can help them complete comprehensive end-of-life plans. So we can help folks think through their end-of-life plans-

Simon Sinek 14:47 Yeah

Alua Arthur 14:47 ... think through their fears of death, think through their death avoidance when they're still healthy and they're not yet looking at the end of their lives.

Simon Sinek 14:52 It's such a good point, right? 'Cause I think we all know that we're supposed to, whether we do or not, you gotta have your will, you gotta have your living will. You know, you have to make your estate in order, make sure somebody knows where all the paperwork is, where the bank account numbers are-

Alua Arthur 15:04 Yes

Simon Sinek 15:05 ... and the insurance policy.

Alua Arthur 15:06 You're good.

Simon Sinek 15:06 Like it's... I mean, no, I know the stuff. And as you get older and you sort of reach a middle age, you're like, "Ah, I gotta do this," you know?

Alua Arthur 15:15 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 15:15 And somebody will say to you like, "I just finished my living will. Did you, did-- Simon, did you do yours?" I'm like, "Ah, I gotta do it, damn it," you know? And like, you know, because we don't think of about our mortality when we're younger, of course. It's bas- mostly financial. It is helping our loved ones be prepared or be s- you know, if there's insurance policies, for example, to make sure that they're taken care of, et cetera. But none of us think about the emotional care, we think of the financial care. Like, you know, people have insurance policies so that their spouses will be taken care of after my dying. My f- my kids, uh, who pay the mortgage. But none of us think about they're gonna go through frickin' hell, emotional awfulness when this happens. I'm gonna also have a plan for them, maybe for myself, but at least for them. I, it's, it, we th- It's so interesting that death is a financial thought.

Alua Arthur 16:04 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 16:04 And we've completely neglect the emotional components to help our family grieve our loss.

Alua Arthur 16:11 Yeah. That's an absolute mirror about the capitalistic society that we live in. It shows us where our values lie, not in-

Simon Sinek 16:18 Wh- what society does it well?

Alua Arthur 16:21 Um, many of them do. I think a lot of societies don't really focus on the financials, but they focus on the community event of it. You know, dying is a, it's a social event. It's not a medical one. It's not a financial one.

Simon Sinek 16:30 Yeah.

Alua Arthur 16:31 It does trigger a lot of financial responsibilities and conversations.

Simon Sinek 16:34 Right.

Alua Arthur 16:34 But it's a social event. It's a community event. And, uh, there are a lot of places that treat it as such, which is part of the reason why a death doula in today's day and age, in this society, a Western society, seems interesting or strange. But it's a role that has been inhabited since time immemorial, because since humans have been alive, humans have been dying, and other humans have been supporting them through it.

Simon Sinek 16:56 [chuckles] Literally.

Alua Arthur 16:56 You know, literally.

Simon Sinek 16:57 [chuckles]

Alua Arthur 16:58 And other humans have been there for them. It just seems strange now maybe because we live in these individual pods where, you know, the nuclear family is the center and I-

Simon Sinek 17:09 Yeah

Alua Arthur 17:09 ... am the center of the universe, and my life matters, and I, I, I, I, I, such that I forget about all those around me whose lives will continue after I die, who I would like to take care of in my dying as well, who are gonna be taking care of me.

Simon Sinek 17:21 The, one of the things that I find also fascinating about the concept of death, and I, you know, I studied anthropology in college, and, uh, a universal is ceremonial burial.

Alua Arthur 17:30 Mm.

Simon Sinek 17:31 That every culture in the entire world, everywhere, big or small, there's ceremonial burial. And when anthropologists go back and look at sort of early bones and, you know, of, of early Homo sapien, like they're amazed that they find ceremonial burial. Like it's a thing. And I wonder if that, you called dying a community event, but the concept of the ceremonial burial is sort of the, the community death doula-ing, if you will. And to your point, which is the decline in sort of ceremonial anything, you know, we, we, we ship ourselves off to the cities and leave our families far behind, that I wonder if the need for a death doula is, is a very modern construction because we are so community-less.In this modern day and age.

Alua Arthur 18:13 I absolutely agree with you that that role used to be inhabited by a member of the community. There was somebody that the people knew that when the dying is happening, you call them over and they come and support. There are still some cultures and some religions that hold onto those. There's a chevra kadisha within Judaism. They're the folks that you call when the dying has occurred, and they prepare the body. And there's ritual written into the religion about how to grieve afterward.

Simon Sinek 18:37 Yeah.

Alua Arthur 18:37 But it's written into it, so everybody knows that's what you do. But in the absence of culture that dictates that, then what do we do? You know, what we do is that we ship it off to hospitals. People are dying in very-

Simon Sinek 18:50 Yeah

Alua Arthur 18:50 ... sterile environments, not in the way that they want, not in the way that their whole humanity is being cared for. And then we pass on their money, and we don't-- We give them three days off for bereavement leave for their grief, and we don't give them any time to be with this massive event that is happening.

Simon Sinek 19:04 I, I mean, I know I really wanna talk about living in just a second, but I'm really just so fascinated by this, which is if you think about it, when a, when a, when a couple gets pregnant, right? When someone gets pregnant, there is thought put to how I want to have my baby.

Alua Arthur 19:16 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 19:16 Do you wanna do natural childbirth? Do you want an epidural? Do you wanna be in a tub of water? Like, where do you wanna be? Do you wanna be at home? Do you wanna be at a hospital? Like, do you want a C-section? Like, what are the medical considerations? Like, there's lots of thought in how to bring a child into this world, and so little thought about how I would like to leave this world. I've never thought about it. I've never thought about it.

Alua Arthur 19:36 Here we are. Now's the time to think about it.

Simon Sinek 19:38 Now's the time to think about it. Okay, let's talk about living.

Alua Arthur 19:40 Okay.

Simon Sinek 19:40 How did you change how you live your life as a result of this experience? And, and, and take me on the journey, which is what changes did you make right after that bus ride in Cuba? So in the very short term, before you, you decided to go do the work, how did you start living your life differently?

Alua Arthur 19:57 Well, I also took that invitation to start living like I was dying, essentially. I was still-- I was under a leave of absence at work, but when I came back, I extended that leave of absence a little bit longer because I thought that I needed a little bit more time to decide what direction I wanted to take my life in, and I'm glad I did. I applied immediately for a, uh, graduate degree program in death and spirituality 'cause I thought maybe I wanted to be a therapist and sit and talk to people that were dying. So I started making the changes. I downsized my apartment because I knew I wouldn't be able to afford it anymore given that I wasn't collecting my salary at the rate that I was. Uh, I made changes in my own life. But since then, so much has changed, you know. Not only did I not go back to the practice of law in any capacity, and I built a business and a career around supporting people when they're dying. I also think I speak a little bit more clearly about how I feel. I, I brush up against my vulnerability a lot more often. Um, the idea of individualism seems to be fading in me, that I'm more comfortable being needed and needing people in my life because I see how communal our lives are and can be, and I want that for myself. But, you know, this idea of individualism has us say that we can do everything on our own. I also, I eat more delicious foods. I'm not as concerned with my weight, if we're gonna be silly about it. Like, I eat whatever I want because this life is short and I wanna use my taste buds as long as I've got them. And I love french fries and cake, so I'm trying to get them while I can.

Simon Sinek 21:25 Yes, and-

Alua Arthur 21:26 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 21:27 ... but if you eat too much fren- too many french fries and too much cake-

Alua Arthur 21:30 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 21:30 ... that day comes a little sooner.

Alua Arthur 21:31 Yeah. Well-

Simon Sinek 21:32 The-theoretically.

Alua Arthur 21:33 Theoretically, 'cause I don't know. Tomorrow could be it, and if it is, I really hope I had a french fry. And also-

Simon Sinek 21:39 [chuckles]

Alua Arthur 21:40 ... also, as I'm going about eating my cake and my french fries, at some point I also want some kale and spinach, all right? Like, I don't just want that.

Simon Sinek 21:47 Right. Right.

Alua Arthur 21:47 When I eat a little bit of it, I satisfy it, then I wanna eat-

Simon Sinek 21:49 Right

Alua Arthur 21:49 ... something else. I wanna nourish my body.

Simon Sinek 21:51 'Cause you don't wanna be-- You don't have diabetes along the way either. That's not fun either.

Alua Arthur 21:54 No.

Simon Sinek 21:54 Right.

Alua Arthur 21:54 And I also really like squats. Like, I like squatting. I like muscles. I like exercise. And so I do-

Simon Sinek 21:58 Yeah

Alua Arthur 21:58 ... that plenty as well.

Simon Sinek 22:00 W-what do you think about the obsession right now of longevity? I live in California, so everybody's on some sort of, you know-

Alua Arthur 22:04 Same. Cleanse

Simon Sinek 22:05 ... supplement something or other, you know.

Alua Arthur 22:06 Everything.

Simon Sinek 22:07 And you ask them the reason why are you doing this, and they-- Longevity is the answer they give you. I'm curious your, your thoughts. Is it fear of death? Is it a, is it a good thing?

Alua Arthur 22:16 I think it's death denial at its core. I think we live in a highly death-avoidant, death-phobic culture, and that tells you that if you take, pop enough supplements and you drink enough baby's blood, you'll live till 117. But why do you wanna live till 117 anyway? You know, what is it that we're trying to avoid by wanting to live for forever? And what are you doing with that extra time that you wouldn't do now with the finite time that you have?

Simon Sinek 22:40 That's such a great point, which is I'm taking all these vitamins, I'm doing all these things, and spending hours a day to prolong longevity so that-

Alua Arthur 22:50 For what? For what?

Simon Sinek 22:50 So it's... You know what, you know what it's, you know what it's the equivalent of? It's the same mentality of, "I'm gonna make a lot of money so that I can give to charity later."

Alua Arthur 22:59 Same mentality.

Simon Sinek 22:59 It's like, why not just give to charity now-

Alua Arthur 23:01 Yeah

Simon Sinek 23:01 ... and give to charity later also?

Alua Arthur 23:03 With what you got. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 23:04 Yeah.

Alua Arthur 23:04 Start with what you've got. And none of us know how much time we have. You know what I mean? Like, I could-

Simon Sinek 23:08 Yeah

Alua Arthur 23:08 ... live till 104 anyway, but I could also... Tomorrow could be it, and if that's the case, then why not live my life right now with the fullness that I can while I'm still here?

Simon Sinek 23:19 What's the youngest person you've, you've helped die?

Alua Arthur 23:23 Well, I supported a family with their newborn died.

Simon Sinek 23:26 Okay. And what's the oldest?

Alua Arthur 23:27 She took like three breaths. Uh, probably about 95.

Simon Sinek 23:33 95. So, um, what have you learned from the people who... L- And l- And, and I'll... A, a newborn doesn't help me with my argument here, but, like-

Alua Arthur 23:43 Hmm

Simon Sinek 23:43 ... somebody who's in their 40s or 50s-

Alua Arthur 23:45 Okay

Simon Sinek 23:45 ... right? So who we would say they've died young, right?

Alua Arthur 23:48 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 23:48 Relative to the, to the national averages, versus somebody who lives way beyond the national averages, 80s, 90s, right? Have you noticed any patterns in how the older ones have lived their lives? What is their attitude to life? How have they lived their life that, that you can perceive that they have lived longer than everybody else?

Alua Arthur 24:10 Can I tell you a story?

Simon Sinek 24:11 Yeah.

Alua Arthur 24:12 A client of mine, one of my absolute favorites, although they're all my favorites, so don't tell anybody I said this. One of my favorite clients, Ms. Bobby, she was about 95 when she died, and in the time that I sat with her, she told me all these stories of her life, you know, about how she was the first Black woman to integrate multiple neighborhoods in Los Angeles. She was a traveling nurse that had traveled abroad and saw the French rolls in France, and so she swears she was the one to bring it to America.

Simon Sinek 24:38 [chuckles]

Alua Arthur 24:39 She chased off lovers with guns, a cheating husband with a gun. She threw n- newspapers at nosy neighbors. She did a big life while she was here, okay?

Simon Sinek 24:50 Mm-hmm.

Alua Arthur 24:51 Nearing the end of her life, I asked her if looking back on any of it made any sense or anything like that, and she responded to me in a super husky, gravelly voice, 'cause she's also smoked, like, packs a day and drank a bunch of whiskey while she was living. I think it was cognac, actually. She drank a lot of cognac. And she said, first of all, none of it made any sense, but it was one hell of a ride. To me, the, the indication of the, like, how people approach their dying is based on how they view their lives themselves. You know?

Simon Sinek 25:22 Yeah.

Alua Arthur 25:22 If I'm spending my whole life resisting my death, it's not gonna be one hell of a ride. But if I can just sink into it for what it is, the utter miracle it is, the, the joy, the benefit of being able to eat food and travel places and meet people and, and, like, be here for the times that I'm here, then I think they reach the end feeling like, "Okay, that was all right." And I notice that same attitude in the younger folks. There was a woman I supported who was about 26, 27, who also was, like, so, so joyful. She did not want to die young, air quotes. She didn't wanna die young. But there she was, and she embraced it with, um, with a wisdom that a lot of older people didn't have, that I certainly didn't have even at the time that I got to support her. She had, she had enjoyed her life for the time that she was present in it.

Simon Sinek 26:10 Mm-hmm.

Alua Arthur 26:10 And I think that's what we can all take away from it, is to be here.

Simon Sinek 26:15 I- it's, it, like, it never, it never made sense to me why, you know, people would save their money to go on, you know, like you see the, it's, retirees who go on these incredible world tours that they've been saving up for for 30, 40, 50 years.

Alua Arthur 26:28 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 26:28 And I always think, "Well, why not just take a small trip every year?" You know?

Alua Arthur 26:32 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 26:32 As opposed to the grand tour near the end.

Alua Arthur 26:34 People waste their whole life.

Simon Sinek 26:35 But to your point, I think a lot of what we're talking about is gratitude. I, I'll tell you one thing that I find absolutely poetic and beautiful. When I asked you what you changed about your life, you know, after, after that b- bus ride in Cuba, I expected you to say, "Well, you know, now I take more vacations." Like, I, I expected you to say those kinds of things, but you said something more beautiful, which is you said, "I've become very comfortable being needed and being needy." Like, "I've been very comfortable needing the help of others, and I've been g- very comfortable feeling needed." And I think that is absolutely beautiful, which is to recognize that, like, we're not alone in this.

Alua Arthur 27:11 Mm-mm.

Simon Sinek 27:12 And to be open to being needed and needing others is something you appreciate more since you've learned about death.

Alua Arthur 27:21 Significantly. Significantly more. I see how as we approach our dying, those that are resistant to the support of others, those that are so afraid to be vulnerable, that are afraid to have a need, are the ones that tend to struggle, because they're still trying to do it all by themselves. Uh, there's a client that I got to be with who, a big burly guy, who, uh, in his dying and his illness got so thin and frail, and he was a classic, you know, pulled himself up by his bootstraps and the American success story. He came from nothing. He made everything. And in his dying, struggled so much with the fact that he could no longer stand on his own or pull his pants up by himself. He was angry. He was frustrated. He-- It was breaking him.

Simon Sinek 28:09 Mm-hmm.

Alua Arthur 28:09 He couldn't surrender into being vulnerable, and that's not something that I want for myself. I also see how all of us become vulnerable. You know, dying is probably one of the most vulnerable acts we'll ever undertake. It's certainly one of the most intimate. Everything, my whole life is gonna be on display for other people. Somebody's gonna go through my sock drawer and that one drawer by the side of the bed that I do not want my mom to see before anybody else does. You know what I mean? That one drawer. Like, every- everything's gonna be on display. My body's gonna be cold and naked on a slab at some point. Um, it's vulnerable. It's very vulnerable. If I'm ill, even more vulnerable. Why not practice it a bit now?

Simon Sinek 28:48 Do you cry?

Alua Arthur 28:49 All the time.

Simon Sinek 28:50 When your clients die?

Alua Arthur 28:51 All the time. All the time.

Simon Sinek 28:53 Who, who-

Alua Arthur 28:53 I grow close to them

Simon Sinek 28:55 ... who helps you manage that grief?

Alua Arthur 28:57 My partner, my friends, the other death doulas in my life, the grief therapists in my life, everybody. The cashier at CVS if they ask me how I'm doing that day.

Simon Sinek 29:05 [chuckles] They ask the wrong question.

Alua Arthur 29:06 And they catch me at the wrong time or the right time.

Simon Sinek 29:10 You've been there for a lot of final words. What are some of the best final words that you've heard that have left you like, "Yes. Thank you"?

Alua Arthur 29:17 N- I wish there were. But it's more like yes or no or mm-hmm. Like, there's not that much energy to come up with something poetic, you know? No, I haven't heard anything that's been like, "Wow." I think that's the stuff of the movies.

Simon Sinek 29:32 My grandmother died when she was about 95 or 96. She, she had a weird relationship with death. And, you know, I remember I'd visit her in London. She was already in a home 'cause her, her body had not worked like it used to. Her mind was fine right until the end. And it was, caused her n- endless frustration 'cause she was, she was an adventurous woman, and she couldn't really do the stuff she wanted to do. So she was in a home, and I would, like, visit her in London, and I'd, I'd leave, I'd say, "Well, I'll see you, you know, next year when I'm back in London," and she'd scream out, "Maybe not," you know?

Alua Arthur 29:59 [chuckles]

Simon Sinek 30:00 Like, she just had this weird relationship with death. Very comfortable with it.

Alua Arthur 30:02 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 30:03 When she died, some of the nurses from the, from the home came, which is very unusual, 'cause they're around death all the time. They don't go to funerals, you know? It's part of the job.

Alua Arthur 30:13 Mm.

Simon Sinek 30:13 But a few of them came to her funeral, which I found really touching. And the one who was with her when she diedSh- we-- I was standing next to the grave with her and I said, "I have to ask you, did she have any last words?" And she said, "Yeah. She, we, she was sitting in bed and she said to me, 'I think I'll have another pillow.' And she left to get another pillow, and she'd come back and she died." And, you know, I kinda love that. You know? I kinda love that.

Alua Arthur 30:45 Me too.

Simon Sinek 30:46 "I think I'll have another pillow."

Alua Arthur 30:47 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 30:48 And I think she was telling her to leave. I think she knew she, that it... And I think she wanted to be alone. Um, but those are, like, the best, the best final words I've ever heard.

Alua Arthur 30:59 That happens often where people wanna be alone. I'm so, I'm so touched that that nurse not only remembered, but shared that-

Simon Sinek 31:05 Yeah

Alua Arthur 31:05 ... with you. Um, it is beautiful. And I also just love the idea that she was like, "Oh, let me get a little bit more comfortable. Sike, I'm out." You know? [chuckles]

Simon Sinek 31:13 Well, I, I think she, [chuckles] being English and polite-

Alua Arthur 31:17 Yeah

Simon Sinek 31:17 ... didn't wanna say, "Could you, could you get out for a moment, please? I'd like to die."

Alua Arthur 31:21 It happens a lot, you know? And I often talk to folks that are experiencing some grief or sadness because they stepped out of the room because either the person dying needed something or they stepped out to get a phone call or to go to the bathroom or so. And while they were gone, their person died.

Simon Sinek 31:38 Yeah.

Alua Arthur 31:38 And they said that-

Simon Sinek 31:38 They, they waited for their moment, right?

Alua Arthur 31:40 They waited for the moment. They wait for the moment. They wait for the moment.

Simon Sinek 31:44 What is the most interesting secret or story you've ever heard somebody tell you on their death bed?

Alua Arthur 31:49 I've heard so many secrets.

Simon Sinek 31:51 Oh, tell one.

Alua Arthur 31:52 There are all types of secrets, family secrets about mistresses and babies and kids and people who died under mysterious circumstances.

Simon Sinek 32:02 Ooh.

Alua Arthur 32:02 Juicy stuff.

Simon Sinek 32:04 Were they confessions or were they more like, "You wanna know something?"

Alua Arthur 32:07 Both.

Simon Sinek 32:09 Wow.

Alua Arthur 32:09 There's a lot of, "You wanna know something? 'Cause I'm not gonna die with this secret," or, "This is so juicy."

Simon Sinek 32:15 What's your favorite? Come on, come on.

Alua Arthur 32:17 Um, about the kids, about mistresses.

Simon Sinek 32:19 The kids.

Alua Arthur 32:19 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 32:20 Other families.

Alua Arthur 32:20 About, like, other families. There's so many other families. So many other families. And I think the 23andMe and ancestry.com and all those places, we're about to find out a whole lot of other families.

Simon Sinek 32:31 That's right. [chuckles]

Alua Arthur 32:31 Okay.

Simon Sinek 32:31 It's all coming out.

Alua Arthur 32:33 Yeah. They don't have to be deathbed confessions anymore.

Simon Sinek 32:34 It's all coming out. It's like they're gonna... That drawer next to your underwear drawer, that's coming out, and the 23andMe that you have two other families.

Alua Arthur 32:41 Nobody's dying with secrets anymore.

Simon Sinek 32:42 [laughs]

Simon Sinek 32:44 Look, everything we're talking about obviously i- is partially about planning for death, but it really is about a celebration of life. And you talked about the 26-year-old who just lived in gratitude, you know? And the 96-year-old, 95-year-old who lived in gratitude for the wild ride. And whatever time you have, make it a, make it something that you'll be grateful for when, when your time is up, whether it's a short time or a long time, right? But we speak in these faux philosophical, like, every day is a blessing and, you know, count your luck and, you know. We, like, we s- we, we say nonsense like this all the time. The only time we really, really, really appreciate that life is short, and the only time we really, really appreciate that how stupid most of our problems are, is when we or someone close to us suffers some sort of real awful tragedy, whether it is a cancer diagnosis or natural disaster. And then we sort of all sit around and take account. You know, somebody goes, "Did you hear, you know, Stanley has terminal cancer?" You know? And you're like, "Ah, it really makes you wanna appreciate every day." We say things like that, and by the way, we mean it.

Alua Arthur 33:45 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 33:45 You know? Every lesson I've learned about the value of life and the shortness of life, blah, blah, blah, and the fragility of life, I've always, for about a day, [chuckles] maybe a week at most, lived a better life and, and then I forget.

Alua Arthur 33:58 Yep.

Simon Sinek 33:58 And I go back to the, go back to normal. And A, is that okay? And if not, how do we stay aware? How do we, r- you know, without having to suffer tragedy regularly to remind us or be surrounded by tragedy around us to remind us, how do we find joie de vivre? How do we live a life of gratitude and joy and make joyful decisions more often on a just a regular, normal day?

Alua Arthur 34:28 Well, I think that's part of the beauty is i- in the question, is that these regular, normal days are where the magic lies. You know? The magic is absolutely in the mundane. It's not just in the tragedy, and it's also not just in those perfect days where the concert tickets for your favorite artists are half off and you get, like, the last ones, or you're at the concert. That's the ma- there is magic in both those things, but it's in the every single day where I can be reminded or I can remember what a wild miracle it is that I get to touch and look at you through these eyes, through a computer no less, and speak. I am sending air into my di- into my lungs, sending it up, pushing my diaphragm out through these vocal cords to make noises, random noises, that somehow you understand and are alchemizing in your own brain and making some sense of and causing a reaction in you, and then thinking the same thing, then you'll do the same thing and send it right back. That is a miracle, and that's happening trillions of times a day, and yet we get so caught up in the little, the little annoyances of life, you know? Uh, tax is a big annoyance, or, like, traffic, or not having the particular type of peanut butter I want at the grocery store, forgetting that peanut butter itself is a miracle. Like, being alive is an absolute, utter gift. It's an utter gift. When I can remember that, when I can remember that, it allows me to be more, like, present. I was talking a bit about gratitude when I was talking about Summer, that client I was telling you about, the young one.

Simon Sinek 35:58 Mm-hmm.

Alua Arthur 35:58 But also a lot more about presence. Like, she had a way of just zoning out and noticing raindrops, noticing the pattern as the raindrops came down the window. That may have been because she was approaching her end and she was very present with her mortality and could think, "Wow, I won't be seeing this much longer." That gift is available to all of us every single moment. I don't know when my end will be at allAt all

Simon Sinek 36:25 I mean, like, you're already making me feel bad, right? Because, and I don't mean this in a bad way, but like I was snippy this morning. Uh, I was annoyed by something at lunchtime, you know, and it's so-- All of it was stupid.

Alua Arthur 36:40 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 36:41 And the reality is I don't care. Like if I really, if you really push me, I, I don't really care.

Alua Arthur 36:46 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 36:47 And so what I'm grappling with in my mind is like I know everything we've been talking about, like, and I think everybody knows everything we've been talking about, you know? Like just to look around and be grateful for, as you said, 'cause I think we do sort of gratitude practice. I think most of us who've tried a gratitude practice, you run out of things real quick.

Alua Arthur 37:07 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 37:07 Like you have an amazing vacat- so grateful for that vacation and that dinner, and by like the third or fourth or fifth day or second or third week of this, you're like, "I'm grateful for my family again, like I was yesterday. I'm grateful for, I guess, I'm safe at home again." I said that, I think I said that yesterday. But your point is, is you could say the same thing every single day, and that's good.

Alua Arthur 37:31 Absolutely. And get, get minute with it. You know you're safe with a home. What about the roof? It doesn't have any leaks. You know? What about the fridge and the food that's in it? What about the ability to chew? What about teeth? What about saliva? What about digestive enzymes? Like we can get really, really minute with it, and when I'm thinking about the minute is where the magic is. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of suffering also in the world. There's so much suffering, and yet when I can zoom out and think about what this life is for me at this moment, it allows me to snap back into it. I think the most effective practice of gratitude for this life itself is the reminder that I'm going to die.

Simon Sinek 38:12 Mm.

Alua Arthur 38:14 When I can remind myself of that, it pulls me right back from the, the annoyances and the minor grievances and the frustrations.

Simon Sinek 38:25 Yeah.

Alua Arthur 38:25 And at the same time, it allows me to be with them in a way that allows them to be so, because I'm also human.

Simon Sinek 38:30 You're right.

Alua Arthur 38:30 And to be human is also to be like a little annoyed sometimes. It makes me like not be, feel so like tight about the emails that I send, you know what I mean? So I didn't get all the wording right. Well, I'm gonna die. [laughs] But also you're gonna die, you know? And so when I'm thinking about that, I don't just hit the email on like the really nasty thing. I don't hit send really easily. When I'm standing and I'm being a jerk in line someplace and somebody else is having a bad day, I think about their death, and it allows me to be a lot more compassionate toward them. One day, whatever it is that's troubling them is gonna be a thing of the past. All of their history, all their doubt, all their fear, all their regret, that's gonna die too. It allows me to like soften toward them. It allows me to like hold my fellow human for being a human, to have-

Simon Sinek 39:11 Yeah

Alua Arthur 39:11 ... like hard days, to be-

Simon Sinek 39:13 Yeah

Alua Arthur 39:13 ... angry about things, to one day be really vulnerable and to be-

Simon Sinek 39:16 Oh

Alua Arthur 39:16 ... laying there like a baby bird. Like it allows me to soften.

Simon Sinek 39:19 Oh, I love that, which is some-- I'm standing in line at, you know, the coffee shop and the person in front of me is having a conniption because they gave them oat milk instead of, you know, almond milk. To s- i- instead of being like, "Chill out," or, "It's just a small sip," to say, "You're gonna die and this won't matter."

Alua Arthur 39:37 At all.

Simon Sinek 39:38 And it does. It really sort of like gives you a little compassion for somebody else's troubles.

Alua Arthur 39:42 A lot of compassion. I don't think that any society that reveres death, any individual that reveres death can also hold any of the systems that keep us disconnected from each other.

Simon Sinek 39:52 Yeah.

Alua Arthur 39:52 It's impossible, because when I'm revering death, I'm honoring the individual for their entire life, for the totality of it. Like I can't do that and also walk down the street across all those people that are laying there and not think twice about it.

Simon Sinek 40:06 Yeah.

Alua Arthur 40:06 You know? Or hold up transphobia. Like it's impossible. You can't.

Simon Sinek 40:10 For people who say grace before a meal-

Alua Arthur 40:12 Mm

Simon Sinek 40:13 ... I think that everyone should learn to say grace even if you're not religious or that's not in your, in, in, in, that is not associated with the, the religion that you practice. Because I think sometimes when I've sat around a table with friends who say grace, sometimes I sort of like giggle to myself, like it's a p- I, I always think of it, it has to be this big religious thing, and some of it's funny-

Alua Arthur 40:33 Yeah

Simon Sinek 40:33 ... and silly, you know? And I think it's good. I think, I think the more funny and silly it can be, the more genuine it is. It's a little gratitude practice. You know? Thanks for this meal. Thanks for having the friends and family around the table. Thanks for the nice weather. I think, I think that's a way to do it, which is to build it into the, to build it into the, the routine of life, you know? Say thank you when you're brushing your teeth for your teeth every single morning. [laughs]

Alua Arthur 41:02 That'd be great. Thank you for your teeth.

Simon Sinek 41:03 And when you lose your teeth, say thank you for your gums. [laughs]

Alua Arthur 41:06 Yeah. Thank you for having had teeth. Thank you for the fruit loops.

Simon Sinek 41:08 Thank you for having had teeth.

Alua Arthur 41:10 Yeah. Thank you for the chance to hold the toothbrush.

Simon Sinek 41:11 Boy, I'm grateful I had to chew.

Alua Arthur 41:13 Yeah. Lucky me. Lucky me.

Simon Sinek 41:16 [laughs]

Alua Arthur 41:16 Lucky me. I am really partial to the concept of grace overall. I think I think of grace as like the basket that gets to hold all of us in our lives and also in our death. I named my company Going With Grace for that reason, that if we can like go along in our lives but also into our deaths with grace, that's feels like a high bar, but it's also so available immediately for all of us at any turn.

Simon Sinek 41:42 And I swear that wasn't a plant. I actually didn't know the name of your company. [laughs]

Alua Arthur 41:45 You did it. [laughs]

Simon Sinek 41:47 That was spontaneous. But yes, it is grace, to have grace, to go with grace. And, and how do you-- When you named the company to go with grace, how did you define grace? Why grace?

Alua Arthur 41:59 Well, I actually-

Simon Sinek 42:00 Because you're anti-grace?

Alua Arthur 42:01 I don't know. No, right? People often think my name is Grace. I think that's just so funny, uh, 'cause I'm-

Simon Sinek 42:05 I mean-

Alua Arthur 42:05 ... so not graceful, but-

Simon Sinek 42:07 That's, but that's funny, to go with grace. It's like, "I, I'm Grace, and I'll go with you."

Alua Arthur 42:10 And I'll come along with you.

Simon Sinek 42:11 [laughs]

Alua Arthur 42:12 That's right. Um, I, I don't know that I ever had a solid definition of what grace could be. I grew up in evangelical. I no longer practice that particular faith tradition, but the concept of grace was through all of my upbringing, my religious upbringing. And I started to think of grace as allowing things to be as they are, you know?

Simon Sinek 42:31 Mm-hmm.

Alua Arthur 42:31 To, to be with a gratitude for what is.Uh, for that thing that holds us through everything that we journey through.

Simon Sinek 42:38 Mm-hmm.

Alua Arthur 42:38 And so going with grace, like going into life but also into death with grace, that would be really pretty cool if we could. And we can.

Simon Sinek 42:46 By the way, even though I-- we're both anti-euphemisms and we're both pro just like just say it what it is 'cause everybody knows, everybody knows they die. Just say they died, right? But let's be honest, the best euphemism I've heard is going with grace.

Alua Arthur 42:59 [laughs] I win? Yeah.

Simon Sinek 43:02 I mean, it's a really good euphemism. [laughs]

Alua Arthur 43:03 It's pretty good. We'll take it. We'll take it.

Simon Sinek 43:06 Oh, it's actually a very cheery conversation.

Alua Arthur 43:09 Surprise, surprise.

Simon Sinek 43:10 Beautiful conclusions here. Grace-

Alua Arthur 43:12 Grace

Simon Sinek 43:13 ... presence, gratitude, my favorite, which is getting comfortable with feeling needed and needing others. All lessons that intellectually we all already know, and I think to be reminded of, of the fragility and temporariness of it all is one mechanism. And I'm, I have to believe you know this, but your life seems to help us feel inspired on two levels. Tactically, the people you're holding their hand and working with them, you know, as they're coming to the end and their families, and then talking about it. Talking about it with me and writing about it in TED Talks and things like that, that you've, that you've offered to the world, you know, helps us all greatly benefit from the gifts that your dying clients have given you to pass on to us.

Alua Arthur 44:01 I'm the luckiest person in the world. I feel so grateful to be constantly in relationship with my mortality in such a way that it has allowed me to create a life that feels really good, that ultimately I can feel comfortable leaving at some point.

Simon Sinek 44:16 Yeah.

Alua Arthur 44:16 Where I can live in service, where I can wear all the wild colors I want to work 'cause I don't care 'cause I'm gonna die. Where I can just be myself while I'm living. That, that to me is the greatest gift that I think this work has been able to give me, and I just hope to pass a little bit of it on.

Simon Sinek 44:33 Well, thanks for letting me, uh, be a part of that journey with you.

Alua Arthur 44:36 Thank you, Simon.

Simon Sinek 44:38 Oh, such a delight.

Alua Arthur 44:39 Yay. That wasn't so bad, right? Just death talk, that's all.

Simon Sinek 44:43 It's just death talk. That's all.

Alua Arthur 44:44 That's all.

Simon Sinek 44:45 I mean, that's what it is.

Alua Arthur 44:46 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 44:47 If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, simonsinek.com, for classes, videos, and more. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other.