What if facing your own death was the true catalyst to change one’s life? Jim McCarthy, motivational speaker on happiness and founder of Jim McCarthy Leadership, spoke with Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), cohost of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference 2016 in Phoenix, Arizona, about living a meaningful life.

Face your own mortality

McCarthy spent a successful career at companies like Yahoo!, Drawbridge, Inc., and Maven Ventures. But three and a half years ago, McCarthy was diagnosed with cancer.

“I’m not going to live forever,” he realized. “And by embracing my own mortality, I’ve started living much more fully.” He wanted to have the courage live a life without regrets, and he knew he wanted to be a motivational speaker.

“I think for some people it does take getting hit with a ton of bricks like that,” he said.

How to reduce stress

McCarthy encourages people to truly face their mortality and to decide what they truly want to accomplish in life. There are many practical things that McCarthy helps people learn in his workshops: mindfulness, affirmations to train your brain to be more positive, goal setting and gratitude.

“These are not just nice ideas, but actual daily practices you can do,” said McCarthy. “If you meditated 10 minutes a day, that’s about 1% of your waking hours. And that 1 percent would improve the other 99 percent of your waking hours.”

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’scoverage of the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference.

Photo by SiliconANGLE