I Took Every Leap and Still Have Regrets Artwork

Remember to Live with Corean Canty

Remember to Live is a podcast born from a simple but profound realization: there is such a thing as too late. Through candid conversations with real people living intentional lives, we explore what happens when we refuse to postpone joy to some distant "someday."

Each episode showcases individuals who are putting the "living" back into "making a living" – people who've chosen presence over endless hustle, who understand that climbing the corporate ladder isn't worth sacrificing health, relationships, and moments that matter.

Inspired by my experience as a caretaker for my mother with dementia, my own burnout, and the eye-opening lessons from "The Five Regrets of the Dying," this podcast offers practical tools and honest insights to help you make small changes that lead to a big life.

Whether through guest conversations or solo episodes, you'll find actionable strategies to create a life with fewer regrets.

Join us on this journey to live a big, full, no-regrets life – because while it's never too late to dream, there absolutely is a "too late" to do.

ABOUT THE HOST:

Corean Canty knows firsthand there is such a thing as "too late." After years of following society's "shoulds" and pursuing titles and salaries at the cost of her health and happiness, her life changed forever when she stepped into the role of caretaker for her mother. This eye-opening experience taught her a simple truth: someday isn't guaranteed.

Instead of postponing joy to a distant future, Corean made the courageous decision to redesign her life on her own terms. Today, as an Idea Catalyst and TEDx speaker & Coach, she helps people find their voice, tell their story, and transform their lives and businesses.

Through the Remember to Live Podcast, Corean creates candid conversations with people who have chosen presence over endless hustle. She invites others to stop waiting for "someday" and start living now – because while it's never too late to dream, there absolutely is a "too late" to do.

All Episodes

Remember to Live with Corean Canty

I Took Every Leap and Still Have Regrets

August 09, 2026 • Corean Canty

0:00 | 11:09

After four years of leaping, quitting corporate, starting businesses, giving two TEDx talks, and traveling everywhere I'd put off, I ended up back in the corporate world I walked away from. And I still have regrets. This episode is the return of Remember to Live, and I'm starting it by admitting the thing this whole show was supposedly built to prevent.

I've been away for a minute. A lot has changed, including the mission of this podcast. This episode is me coming back to the mic to tell you why, and to walk through the book that cracked open everything I thought I knew about living without regret: Daniel Pink's The Power of Regret. Turns out the "no regrets" philosophy might be the thing getting in our way.

This conversation is for you if you:

Have taken the leap and still wonder if you got it wrong
Are chasing "no regrets" and secretly still carrying some
Feel like your life looks right on paper but something still nags at you
Are sitting on a decision right now, afraid either choice leads to regret
Are starting over again and don't know how to talk about it yet

Key Takeaways

On Coming Back:

Why a short break turned into a year of living and inaction
What it felt like landing back in corporate after doing "all the things"
Why having regrets again, after all that, felt like a personal failure at first

On the Two Kinds of Regret:

Daniel Pink's research on regret, and the one type that outweighs the other
Why "no regrets" might be the wrong goal to chase
What changed when I stopped trying to avoid regret altogether

On Regret as a Signal, Not a Verdict:

Why regret isn't the character flaw we think it is
The difference between reflecting on a regret and spiraling in it
What regret is actually trying to tell you, once you stop running from it

On Reframing Regret:

Why action regrets, even the failed ones, land differently than the ones from doing nothing
A simple phrase that's changing how I look back on hard decisions
Why the pain of not doing something outweighs the pain of doing it wrong

On This Next Season:

What turning 50 is making me rethink about how I spend the time I have left
Why I'm choosing action over inaction going forward
What this next season of the show is going to look and sound like

Chapters

00:00 Coming Back to the Mic
01:49 Four Years of Leaping: Business, TEDx, Travel
03:05 Back in Corporate, and Still Regretting
03:50 Discovering The Power of Regret
05:26 Regret as a Signal, Not a Verdict
07:01 The Shoulds I Followed and the Regret They Left
09:21 "At Least I" vs. "I Wish I Would Have"
10:17 Turning 50 and Choosing Action Over Inaction

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review and share with a few friends so we can all help each other Remember to Live.

To connect with and learn more about me and how I am Remembering to Live, you can find me on Instagram @coreancanty or at coreancanty.com.

To work with me and explore freebies, check out: https://coreancanty.com/links/

Corean (00:00:01)
Welcome back to the Remember to Live Podcast. It's me, Corean, and I know it's been a minute. It's been a minute, a lot has changed. And recently, ⁓ I read another that changed my life in a way that brought me back to this mic. Now, those of you who followed this podcast for a minute know that this podcast was birthed out of the desire to remember to live because I've been taking care of my mom and I realized there's this point in life when

There is a such thing as too late. ⁓ We can always want to do things. We can always dream about doing things, but there can be a point when your brain and your body just can no longer do it and you will never have a chance to do it in this life. And that got me thinking about end of life regrets and got me reading The Five Regrets of the Dying. And that book changed my life. But there's a new book in my life. And it's changed everything. And it's even changed.

the premise of this podcast, which has brought me back to this mic to be here with you today. I even took notes. I've been, I've been deep ⁓ into this book, right? And so during that period in my life, I'd spent 20 years climbing the ladder, doing all the shoulds, avoiding the risk, taking care of my family. ⁓ And ⁓

I just quit my job, I'd stepped away from corporate. I was ready to ⁓ fully live my life while I could, while I was young enough to take a break and discover myself after raising my kids.

And I had this pause.

Corean (00:01:49)
And I had what I thought was going to be a small break turn into four years. And during that four years, I've done a lot of things. I've started businesses, I've traveled, I've spoken on stages, I've done two TEDx talks, I've gone on vacations to places I never dreamed of going. I've had so many different experiences with my family and my friend.

Friends, I've just did a lot of living, a lot of things. ⁓

Corean (00:02:49)
I've just done a lot of living, a lot of things I never took the time to do or had the courage to do ⁓ or took the leap or wanted to take the risk. I took ⁓ all the leaps.

Corean (00:03:05)
And here I am four years later, back in corporate.

In the one thing ⁓ why does that do that?

Corean (00:03:19)
And here I am back in corporate. And the one thing ⁓ that I was focused on not having regrets, I still can look back over these past four years and I have so many. I have so many things I would have done differently. And that really started to get to me. It really started to make me ⁓ question: what am I doing with my life? What does it really mean?

Corean (00:03:50)
And it got a little hard for a minute because ⁓ I felt passionate about

taking the risk, taking the leaps, doing all the things and not having regrets. Here I was with regrets again.

Corean (00:04:05)
But what I realized listening to Daniel Pink talk about his book, which I immediately bought and I'm diving into. So you'll probably hear more on this topic soon, is that there's two types of regrets. ⁓ There's the regrets that we have from inaction, and then there's the regrets that we have from taking action. And end of life regrets, those are the regrets from inaction. Those are the things that you

Never did that you wanted to do, and you look back and you're like, man, if only I did that thing, then my life would be this, then my life would be that. I should have done this, I should have done that, right? And then we have the regrets that come from taking action. The choices we would have done differently ⁓ after the fact. And what I realized is that.

Having regrets isn't a bad thing. It's actually what makes us human. Daniel describes it as one of the main human experiences because we have these really unique capabilities as humans, right? We can ⁓ look back into the past and reflect on it and think about it. Or we can ⁓ think about the future and so we can time travel.

Corean (00:05:26)
And we're also ⁓ really good at making up stories. So we can look back at the past and say, well, if I would have done this different, that this could have happened. And we imagine all of these stories and all of these other possibilities. And if we're already feeling bad, we tend to think that all the good stuff would have came with the other choice, ⁓ or all the good stuff would have came if I just would have done the thing I was afraid to do. But they're still all stories. How do we know ⁓ we don't?

We don't ⁓ know. ⁓ We don't know. But what we do know is that the feeling, the feeling doesn't feel good. Regret does not feel good. But it's telling us something, and we can learn from it. And what I've been realizing this week, as I was sitting with some regrets that I didn't know what to do with.

Is that I can either ⁓ live in that regret.

Or I can let it be the messenger that it's meant to be. Or I can receive the message that it's telling me. And I can reflect on it and I can understand what I was meant to learn ⁓ from the choices that I did make and find the gift in it.

Corean (00:07:01)
Because our human brains are also really good at comparison and looking for blame and guilt and many times regret makes us blame ourselves for the feeling in the situation that we're in. And we can spiral into self-criticism and we can just get stuck there.

Really, it's a signal. It's a signal for what you really want in life and what you don't want in life. And so ⁓ instead of looking back at these several years, in my whole life, right? We can all look back on our whole life. And there's, should I have taken that job? Should I have asked for that raise? Should I have dated that person? Should I have chosen a different major in school? Should I have taken a year off? Should all these shoulds. Many of us.

Follow the shoulds society told us and ignored the shoulds ⁓ our intuition was telling us. ⁓ And we look at those things and we feel regret about it. But we can choose a different lens. We can go back and say, at least I did the thing, at least I made the decision, at least I tried, at least I had the experience. And that experience gave me something. Every experience gives us something. It helps us know where to be better.

What not to do. We've met people that have changed our lives in ways we can't imagine that we wouldn't have met if we made a different choice. We have children and families and experiences that have shaped our resilience and our strength and our capabilities and our skills. But we have to choose to look for those things. And so now I'm welcoming regret. I'm building a relationship with regret. This podcast is no longer about.

No regrets or eliminating regrets because we can't live a life without regrets. It's just not possible. We're human. We have this ⁓ magical power ⁓ of looking back on things ⁓ and wishing we would have done something different or thinking about the possibilities. And sometimes we spend too much time there than looking at the possibilities that are in front of us in our life right now.

Corean (00:09:21)
And so the one thing that I've realized is that ⁓ I can live with the at least I's I'm not too good at the I wish I would have. I don't want to get to the end of my life with a pile of I wish I would have. I wish I had the courage to, I wish I would have tried, but I'll never know. I'd rather get to the end of my life and have.

Man, I tried that and it didn't work, but I know. Now I know. ⁓ I made that decision. I took that leap. I did the thing. It didn't turn out how I wanted it to, but I did get this other beautiful thing out of it that I never would have gotten in my life. And that's how I'm choosing to look at regret, which is a whole different world to live in.

Corean (00:10:17)
Now, I've been wanting to come back to this podcast for a minute. What was supposed to be a little short break turned into a whole year ⁓ of living and change and rediscovering myself as I'm creeping up ⁓ on being 50.Feels weird just to even say that out loud. I'm realizing that statistically, I have

More life behind me than I do in front of me. Which means I have a whole playground of looking back and reimagining and feeling bad about things. But it also means whatever precious time I have left, I want to fully lean in and fully live through ⁓ the decisions that work out just as I planned, which they really do, to

The long list of things that I will be able to say, at least I did it, at least I tried, at least I took the leap, at least I did. So I'm leaning into action versus inaction because the regrets based on inaction feel way more painful. But those regrets based on action feel way more valuable.

To my lived experience, to who I am, to who I'm becoming. And so all of the things I've been thinking about, and how I've wanted to come back to this podcast, and the things I want to talk about, and the stories I want to tell, I'm just doing it with you in the moment. I'm not waiting for it to be perfect. I'm not planning it all out and trying to make it perfect. I just want to do and be and live and see where this goes together. So

If you've been listening, thank you for tuning back in with me. I'm looking forward to this next season, this new journey, this ride, this showing up to life. I really feel like my fifties are going to be ⁓ the best ⁓ decade of my life so far.

Corean (00:12:38)
And I wanna fully live it. And I wanna remind you all to remember to live yours as well.