TED｜What would your deathbed self tell you today

Lauren Deeley | TED • Nov 2025

I want you to imagine yourself on your deathbed. But you're smiling. Your soul is exhausted and full. What do you look like? What are you wearing? Who's with you, where are you?

Everything in my life that I'm most proud of, I can attribute to conversations that I've had with someone very important to me. Her name is Deathbed Deeley.

Let me explain. I have this deep, crystal-clear relationship with my future, deathbed self. She has deep smile lines from a lifetime spent laughing, leathery skin from spending so much time outside, long gray hair. And before you think I'm crazy for talking to my deathbed self, there's actual research to back up this approach to making big, bold decisions.

Hal Hershfield, the UCLA psychologist and professor, has shown that our brains actually treat our future selves as a completely separate person from our today-self. And this can make it really hard to make decisions that benefit our long-term well-being. And his research also showed that when we can stay connected to our future selves, we often lead more fulfilling lives.

So for me, deathbed Deeley isn't another person. She's me, I'm her right now. And our conversations have led me on a wild path that so far has taken me to a career where I get to help other people talk to their own deathbed selves. And no, I'm not a late-night TV psychic. I work in financial planning and wealth management.

I know, it's not what I was expecting either, but hear me out. My career is about so much more than just managing your money. It's about helping you envision your future self to get to know him or her or them, and then be their advocate so that today-you can go make big, bold decisions.

But let's back up. The first time I met Deathbed Deeley, I was 22 years old and I had this insane opportunity to take all my meager savings and buy a hostel in San Jose, Costa Rica. Now there are about a thousand "what ifs" and "what can go wrongs" with a decision like this. So with the sellers on the phone, like, an actual corded phone, I sat on a bed, closed my eyes, and I asked myself: What would my future self think?

And then I saw her. Laugh lines, gray hair, aspen trees out the window. I imagined walking away from the deal, and there was this look of deep disappointment on Deathbed Deeley's face. And then I imagined saying yes. She got this wry little smile, and this sense of deep, powerful, calm energy filled my body. The choice was clear: I was buying a hostel.

Now fast forward, a few years ago, I got a call from two friends of a great client. To protect their privacy, we'll call them Alex and Avery. Alex and Avery had just experienced the sudden passing of a dear friend just hours after they'd been skiing together. Their friend was 62 years old. And this awakened something in them that they had known for quite some time. The typical plan of work until 65, then retire, then finally live, was wrong for them. What they wanted was to work until age 55, take a ten-year "pre-retirement," spending time with the people they love, doing the things that they love. Then they'd go back to the workforce at age 65, in novel, low-stress jobs.

This is my catnip. So we sat down, we put a plan in place that was personalized to them. And what I can tell you is that as they're moving towards this goal, they are experiencing more joy, more spaciousness, because they're on a path that's right for their future selves.

Now back in the pandemic, I got a call from one of my favorite people in the whole world. We'll call her Lil. Lil's life had just fallen apart. Her words. She'd been living in Vermont, teaching art, when suddenly the world shut down and her mother passed away. So she goes out to the west coast to visit some friends. She stops into a little shop that she'd known for years. The shop owner was also struggling -- pandemic -- and offered Lil the chance to take over the business. Now for most people, buying a retail business in the middle of a global shutdown would be a hard no. But Lil said yes, instantly. She had no plan, no idea how it would work out, no business experience. But when she got quiet and thought about her future, it was an immediate "hell yes."

So we got to work. We mapped out the cash flow needs, the runway, the safety net, the investment plan we'd leg into as the business started to succeed. And now, five years later, I can tell you, the shop is thriving. From that moment in the pandemic, Lil's life has exploded in abundance in ways that I don't think either of us could have imagined. All because she followed that one clear yes from her future self.

Now I believe the purpose of life is to be able to get to the end and look back and say, "Damn! I lived that one."

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