my goal today is to convince you to
write a love letter and while I am a
romantic at heart this isn’t your
typical love letter I’m inviting you to
write first the recipient doesn’t have
to be a sweetheart it can be a sibling a
child even a dear friend because the
person you’re gonna be writing is the
person in this world that you love the
most who do you think of when I say that
who is the person in this world that you
love the most can you picture them in
your mind
the second reason this isn’t going to be
your typical love letter as the subject
matter instead of telling your beloved
just how great and wonderful they are
you’re going to be going a lot deeper
than that because this is your last love
letter
this is your last Testament before dying
this is the last tense to tell your
beloved what matters most in this life
and what they should be living for and
you want to tell them the truth
because you love them I’m asking you to
do this today because I have done it and
it has changed my life it has helped me
to stop wasting the most precious
resource I own and we as humans at home
and that’s our time and by wasting our
time all I mean is in many ways we don’t
live our lives in a fashion that
reflects and furthers our own deeply
held values and beliefs and therefore
we’re wasting that one thing we cannot
reproduce and we can’t buy anymore of
and that’s our time of course the
problem with wasting your time is you
get to fit into your life and you have
all this regret it’s a principle and
it’s a principle I was powerfully
reminded of just recently when I read an
article by brawny where titled the
regrets of the dying
you see brawny was a nurse in Australia
to folks who had come home to die she
was with them the last three to 12 weeks
of their lives and as part of her
therapy with them she would often ask
them do you wish you’d had done
something differently and what Bronte
found is in the eight years of nursing
the dying her patients had lots of
regrets and these regrets seemed to
center around certain themes and I was
so powerfully struck by her article I
want to share a few of those themes with
you first Dreams brownies patients
regretted not chasing their dreams it
was the most common regret they had only
at the end of life where they no longer
had the health to pursue their dreams
are they filled with deep sorrow because
they knew they had never gone for it and
the reason they had never gone for it
was because of a decision they had made
or they had failed to make work brownies
patients deeply regretted spending so
much time working all her male patients
had this regret they regretted missing
the youth of their children and the
companionship of a spouse every male
patient brownie had deeply deeply
regretted having worked so hard finally
friends brownies patients regretted
losing touch with close friends her her
patients talked about these golden
relationships that in the busyness of
life just somehow kind of slip by Bronte
says at the end all her patients cared
about was love and relationships then in
the final weeks of their lives all they
when I hear the words of brownies
patients they ring true to me
I think her patients are being honest
and it only makes logical sense to me
that the closer we come to our death the
more honest we become about this life so
what do we do about it how do we get the
proper perspective on this life now
before we’re on our deathbed how do we
get the proper protective on this life
now well we have the health and the
ability to do something about it we do
it by writing a last love letter to our
beloved and telling them what matters
most in this life and what they should
be living for as I mentioned before I’m
asking you to do this because I have
done it and it has changed my life
I wrote my letter in Baghdad Iraq as a
soldier in the United States Army and I
want to share with you today one of the
events that compelled me to write this
letter it was December 10th 2005 I was
with my good friend captain step
Knowlton after work in his trailer and
we were just hanging out and all of a
sudden we hear the sound of one of our
50 caliber tower guards really laying
into a target now this is a rack and the
sound of 50 caliber machine gun is not a
uncommon thing at that time so we didn’t
think a whole lot of it but what was
interesting this night is that the 50
Cal just kept firing and firing and then
it seemed to be joined by other 50
caliber tile guards at other places
along the perimeter of Camp Victory and
the sound was so loud and took place so
long that we decided to go outside and
see what was going on and when I went
outside that night I saw something I’ll
never forget for the rest of my life the
sky was alive with purple and green
tracer rounds the sounds of machine-gun
fire and rifle fire was bouncing off
every single surface and as I looked
into the sky I saw that the fire was
coming from 180-degree arc from here to
here we were literally
rounded by the sights and sounds of war
I look down then all of a sudden I
realized that I’m not standing alone but
there’s a bunch of other soldiers
standing all around me all not saying
war but all thinking the very same thing
and that is the surgeons are finally
trying to do it they’re trying to topple
can’t victory because of can’t victory
are based because of its strategic
importance as operational headquarters
of war we were always under threat of
attacked but after being in Baghdad for
almost 11 months we learned to just kind
of dismiss this threat you know we
thought there’s too many of us we all
have an m16 on her back it would be a
suicide mission but that’s what appeared
was happening and because the fire was
emanating from 180 degrees from both
sides of our compound it met it was
going to be a complex well-organized
attack and as I looked at these sights
and sounds of war and taking it in all
of a sudden I heard it I’m good and that
was the Wiz of a bullet passed right by
my head impacted within meters I yelled
to my buddy no get down all six foot
four inches of that Wisconsin Badger hit
the ground started running soldiers were
ducking taking cover everywhere we make
it back to milton’s trailer Knowlton
throws on his his body armor his Kevlar
I look for his roommates body armor and
Kevlar I can’t find it anywhere
and as a laying on the floor the trailer
on my stomach with only my m16 in my
hand my mind is racing as I mentioned
before by this time we’d been in Baghdad
almost 11 months it was just one month
before I was supposed to go home one
month before I was going to be reunited
with my wife and my baby girl and
insurgents were trying it bad guys were
going to be coming inside the wire and
it was about to get really ugly and as I
lay on the floor of that trailer my mind
reeling with imminent fears of combat my
mind often switched from the temporal to
the eternal and I began to pray I said
Lord Jesus please please protect those
tower corner
it seemed like they’re being overrun by
the enemy please protect them help them
to do their duty the same time help me
to do my duty somehow help me to muster
the courage to do whatever I need to do
in the next minute and the next three
minutes to deserve well but at the same
time please protect me please let me
this is the hard part and on the floor
of the trailer I pray this I said but
Lord if is not your will that I come
home somehow welcome me into your
kingdom and compensate my wife and my
baby girl for the loss of a loving
husband and father and as I finished
praying on the floor of that trailer
trying to get ready for what would
happen next I listen I heard this noise
and it was from our loudspeakers that we
had installed all over post and it came
on and it said Camp Victory Camp Victory
you are not under attack you are not
under attack take cover and remain there
I look at a look at Knowlton we’re not
an attack
sure enough comes on a couple minutes
later says it again can’t victory can’t
victory you are not under attack you are
not under attack take cover and remain
there Knowlton our look and each other
it was like war three outside in this
guest and we’re not our attack and I you
know I don’t know if you can actually
get a lawful order from a speaker system
in Baghdad Iraq so I mean I guess if you
can maybe we violated it because we
decided to get up from not that trailer
and make our way to the two-mile hike to
the command center and find out what is
going on and the second we walk in that
command center the second we walk in and
run to my good friend captain Chris Mac
and he goes guys guys did you see all
that craziness out there it’s like
you’ll never believe it Iraq just beat
Syria in soccer all that craziness
his celebratory gunfire Nolton and I did
like you guys right if he we smile and
though he started laughing and it became
the funniest story of the entire
deponent but it had a serious side
because eight people on post were
injured by the celebratory gunfire
including a captain and colleague of
mine took a bullet right to the side of
the head barely missed losing an eye by
a few centimeters but for me it also had
a serious side because I could not
forget what it was like to lie on the
floor that trailer and cry out to God I
couldn’t forget what is like the lie on
the floor that trailer and have deep
regret knowing that I had not lived my
life in accordance to my values and
beliefs so what I do about it
well I turn this journal I’ve been
keeping in a rack into my book it’s
titled because of Baghdad
what a father would say about life if he
didn’t come home to say it in France the
truth about my book the truth about my
book all it is is a last love letter to
my daughter it might be a long one but
it’s just a last love letter to my
daughter telling her what matters most
in this life and what she should be
living for this is funny to me I don’t
know if it’d be funny to you but the you
know I wrote this book and of course I’m
super proud of myself for writing this
book you know it’s awesome right but
somewhere along the way I got this
interesting idea that maybe I needed to
take my own advice
right like physician heal thyself
that if these are the words I would live
with my daughter before dying then maybe
their words I should be living by every
single day so I’ve implemented some very
specific action steps in my life to make
sure that I live my what matters most
and I want to give you a glimpse into
what that looks like for us first it
means two dates a week I have two dates
a week with my wife and
we calendar to the time why do we do
this we do this because in the busyness
of raising four kids and a demanding
career it is really easy to lose touch
with each other I see it in my peers I
see it happening all the time we don’t
want to lose touch we want to get closer
my wife matters most so we have two
dates a week TV I cut off all cable TV
in my house I don’t even have the rabbit
ear kind of thing so you can do
old-school TV why do we do this we did
this because I love watching TV I love
watching golf in football and I’d spend
a lot of my available time on weekends
watching these things instead of
watching my four little kids play and I
came to realize that my four little kids
need to see my eyes looking into their
eyes and not into some screen my kids
matter most so we cut off TV finally my
wife and I we choose to live simply we
live well beneath our means why do we do
that we do it because I know it’s really
easy for me to ramp up our lifestyle and
my lifestyle to become these golden
handcuffs tying me to a job that I don’t
want to do to pay for a bunch of stuff
that doesn’t even make me happy I don’t
want to be slave to my stuff work-life
balance work life balance matters most
to us so we choose to live simply now
please hear me on this I’m not asking
you today to implement these specific
action steps into your life we’re all
different people right we’re all
different people and plus what kind of
sane person turns off TV right that’s
but here’s what I am asking you to do
I’m asking you to believe in the process
and come to understand that it is the
anecdote the antidote to a life of
regret and the process is just three
simple things three simple things number
one write a last love letter to your
beloved telling them what matters most
in this life and what they should be
living for number two read your own
letter and then three follow your own
advice if you will decide today to do
these three simple things if you’ll do
make that decision today I promise you I
promise you your older self will thank
you for it one day and if you’re super
courageous and you want to go put a
stamp on the letter and put in the mail
when your beloved receives it I promise
you they’ll thank you too it’s been an
honor to be on this stage and speak to you today thank you for your time