3 May, 2022

Pete Cohen  0:00

Happy, beautiful, amazing day. It is Pete Cohen it is the Future Self Podcast. today's podcast is called the 5 Biggest Threats to Building your Fantastic Future. I will see you after the theme tune.

 

Pete Cohen  0:52

Yes, the greatest things that are stuck inside my head. It's amazing what goes on between those two little ears that we have, right? That space, that small space that our whole world is basically affected by what goes on in there. It's so fascinating to me. And that's what the future self podcast is. All about. You know it is about your ability just to step back stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop and pause. pause for a moment and be curious. Be curious about the human condition. Be curious about yourself. I mean, it's the most amazing thing the most amazing thing on this earth. It's you right because without you Well, there is no life because you're not here. And we six years into podcasting are more committed than ever to help people create a fantastic future. How do we do that? We've got software, we've got hardware, we've got this thing, this mind and this body. And honestly, how many of you could put your hand on your heart and quite honestly say that you are making the most of what you have. And I think most of us myself, I'd say no, definitely not. You know, there's definitely some things I could do that could make me better. But why would I want to be better? And today I really want to dive into some of the biggest threats, the biggest threats for us to to evolve to be better to make a difference in this world because I would imagine you're listening to this because we have a lot in common right? What do we have in common? Well we both breathes both. Is it just you and me listening to this? I don't know. Maybe it's just you and me and that's what I want you to have the experience through this podcast that I am just talking to you because I care about you. I am the people's coach, the people's performance coach, that's who I am. That's what I do. I want to help you perform better but where do you want to perform better? We know that for most people, Sigmund Freud talked about the two main areas of life he called it love and work. Jim Rohn Jim Rohn Jim Rohn Jim Rohn talks about roles and goals. Tony Robbins talks about categories of improvement. And for me, there's lots of areas but I think it kind of all boils down to three, right? If I could wave my magic wand and give you the life that you wanted. Chances are you would want to have significant changes with your health and your energy. That's one. So who would you like to be with your health and energy? Maybe you're exactly where you are right now. I'm definitely not there is some work to do that. I want to do. The second area is your relationships are you where you want to be with your relationships. This is where it starts to get really interesting. I'm not just talking about the relationships with others, your friends, your family, your colleagues, talking about the relationships you have with yourself, the relationship, you know, what is that relationship like we can judge it. We can say it's good, it's bad, it's right is wrong. But if we were kind of looking on average, what is that relationship like? Would you like to have a better one with yourself? Would you like to be able to get yourself to do what you need to do regardless of how you feel? Would you? Would you like to reinvent yourself? And then the third area is your wealth and your work and your service? Are you where you want to be or is there is there work to do. Now, a lot of people in the world today would like someone to do all of that for them right now. If you listen to this podcast and you want someone to do it for you, you're listening to the wrong podcast, you want to go and find that podcast that is called I'll change your life for you. You don't have to do anything. And some people would like that. But if someone else did it for you, how long would it be until you went back to what you were doing before? It probably be quite quick. Because human beings have a very

 

Pete Cohen  4:52

well, we have a habit of history. It tends to repeat itself unless we become the change that the world wants to see we become the change that we want to see. And that's why I want to talk about because we're all in the game changing business, right? That's what we're in because we're changing the game. Everything we do every single day is changing the game that we're playing. Now. I can't wave my magic wand. But I think the magic in creating an amazing life. Is actually vocalizing what it is that you want writing it down and actually telling them I you know, I want to be healthier. I want more energy and I want to grow my business. Right and talk I want to have a better relationship with myself. I want to meditate every day. Whatever it is that you want to do to say at first, because the word abracadabra means comes from a Hebrew word meaning I create as I speak. So everything we do in this podcast is really about giving you a different perspective and challenging you to look at yourself differently because if we don't look at ourselves differently, we'll keep looking at ourselves in a way that we look at ourselves right now and then wonder why we keep repeating what we've been repeating before. And if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got is the time now right now, for you to go you know what I'm ready to reinvent myself is a big question the big question of asking questions. That's what a coach does. What will be your greatest ever achievement? Not what has been your not a has been right? Right. You know what has been your becoming the Give me one I just drink some water you're becoming and who are you becoming? This is where we need to look at these threats. Because I can't do the work for you. I can definitely help you. I can definitely support you. No question about that. I'm the people's coach. We've been doing this for over 30 years. We've been getting incredible results with people we have helped people to build a relationship to their future self and I want to tap into that right now. If you want to do the work, which will probably be your greatest achievement will be the work that you would have done for yourself to get better. Will that not be the greatest work if you've ever tidied something up or fixed something? And you can look at the work that you did you can think you know what, I did that? I look at that with all the books I've written the 20 books I've written, you know, I've got a copy of every I think I've got a copy of every single one of those books. I look at those books, and I'm really proud of what I did. But that's nothing compared to what I'm going to do. So let's look at these biggest threats. The there are five but actually there's probably more but let's just touch upon five the first biggest threat for you creating your fantastic future building building. A better future is basically not being connected to your future self. You don't have that connection. And the thing is, you don't have to you don't have to believe me because there's a lot of amazing people out there that are talking about this and I want to introduce you to a few people. The first person is a Professor Daniel Goldstein. I'd love you right now to listen to what he says this is fascinating. Why do

 

Speaker  8:14

we need commitment devices? Well, resisting temptation is hard as the 19th century English economist, NASA William Sr. Said, to abstain from the enjoyment which is in our power, or to seek distant rather than immediate results are some of the most painful exertions of the human will. If you set goals for yourself and you're like a lot of other people, you probably realize it's not that your goals are physically impossible. That's keeping you from achieving them is that you lack the self discipline to stick to them, right. It's physically possible to lose weight. It's physically possible to exercise more but resisting temptation is hard. The other reason that it's difficult to resist temptation is because it's an unequal battle between the present self and the future self. I mean, let's face it, the present self is present. It's in control. It's in power right now. It has these strong heroic arms that can lift doughnuts into your mouth, right? And the future self is not even around. It's off in the future. It's weak. It doesn't even have a lawyer present. There's nobody to stick up for the future self and so the present self can trounce all over its dreams.

 

Pete Cohen  9:29

Fascinating, right. I mean, there's two big things that you just heard that one is a lack of discipline, and that's why we know it's one of the core virtues for all human beings, delaying gratification. If you look at religion, philosophy, they all say the same thing that that is one of the superpowers. One of them obviously is you know, your focus your ability to get traction as opposed to distraction but your ability to say no, I loved what he said there about you don't know your future self. If you don't know your future self, then good luck. You know, your present self, your present self is present. So you will give yourself the present of being in the present which is rewarding yourself with things which basically aren't going to allow you to create the future that you want, because I think most of us know if we're going to be really honest about all of this and I think honesty is a is a good place to start. That basically, most people today are living a future they don't want. They really really aren't and what we've been doing, and I'm very proud of this, you know, because we launched something recently, the stop one start one challenge. We've been challenging people to go to work on building a connection to their future self and actually want you to hear from one of those people and she talks about her relationship now to her future self.

 

Speaker  10:47

I am developing a relationship with my future self. And I never thought about it like that before. So I always had goals and I said things that I wanted to do when I was I think 20 I set a goal of wanting to work on every continent by the time I was 40. I've never not had a future stretch idea. But I never sat down with my future self like an actually had conversations or heard her talk to me in my brain when I was making present decisions. So that would be how I'd say I'm most different that she now. I'll hear I literally when I'm about to do something or actually not do something. She says, Why are you not going to do that? In six months time? You're not going to worry about it. Do it?

 

Pete Cohen  11:32

Fascinating, right? Absolutely fascinating. That's what we're committed to doing. You know, why are we doing this? Well, you know, last year we launched a free 30 Day Program. It's, look, it's the best part I think is the best program in the world. I don't think there is a better program than what I've created is 30 days is free, in terms of helping people identify with the future self. And why do I know it's the best program one of the 8000 plus subscribers who have subscribed to it only 2.8% of people completed it. And that's one of the ladies who just who there who completed that program. And you talk about the fact that what she now has her future self is as present as her present self, a future self is present and it's fascinating to me, that human beings have, I think most people, as I said, are living a future that they really don't want and I I really want to dive even more deeper into this so you understand so we know that one of the biggest threats is you don't have a connection to your future self if you don't have a connection to your future self. What do you think is actually going to happen? You're going to be your present self and how is your present self performing right now? Again, this is really interesting. I think human beings genuinely do the best they can with what they know. So that's what we're doing. That's what we're all doing right now. We're doing the best that we can with what we know we have an identity. Our identity means our repeated beingness. So every day we represent who we think we are. We get up every day. We're hugely predictable. We go into situations things happen. We behave in very predictable ways. We go into a room full of people we don't know. We run that program of what we do for most people, they feel self conscious. They get up on stage they run that program of oh, I'm not good enough. And to look at this and say it's right or wrong. I say it's not right or wrong. It is what it is. But to take awareness of this and that's my everything we do it this is the only thing you take away from this podcast today. Please just pay attention to this. It's so important. Everything that we do everything that we do, as human beings is governed by our view of the future. That's everything we do. But our view of the future is fascinating because most people's view of the future doesn't go very far. And one of the people I've really tapped into and learnt so much from is a guy called Hal hershfield, who is a professor of marketing. And I just want you to listen to what he's saying about future self.

 

Speaker  13:57

I know it sounds a little weird to think about the future self as another person. But if you stop and take that notion, seriously I think it really helps explain why so many of us privileged today, over tomorrow. Think about how we treat other people. If we care for them. If we feel a sense of connection toward them. We'll make sacrifices for them, just like we do for our children, our aging parents and theoretically our spouses. And the same can be said for our future selves. If we feel a sense of connection to our future selves. We're going to make sacrifices today so that they have a better life in the distant future. Now,

 

Pete Cohen  14:37

isn't that fascinating? Once again, do you not find that fascinating all the things that we could have a conversation about? The conversation about our relationship to our future? You know, when I get together with my friends, you know, I'm 51 Almost 52 When I get together with my friends, we talk about the past and you know the past was great. Not all of it was great. But I love talking about the future. And if you heard what he said there's absolutely fascinating again, I mean, do you want more evidence of what people are saying about if you don't have empathy with the person you could be you're just keep having empathy for who you are right now and you just keep repeating and what will be your greatest ever achievement? You know that there's a few more people I'd like you to hear from one of them is Meg Jay, who's a clinical psychologist. Listen to what she says about the empathy gap. This is another one of the five biggest threats to your future. You don't have empathy to your future self.

 

Speaker  15:41

So philosopher Derek Parfit said, we neglect our future selves because of some sort of failure of belief or imagination. So I'm going to say that again because it's really important. We neglect our future selves because of some sort of failure of belief, or imagination. But that's a problem, because research shows that our brains think about our future selves, similarly to how they think about strangers. And that's where the empathy gap comes in. It can be difficult for us to care about a version of ourselves that we haven't met yet. Yet. Research also shows that if we find a way to close that empathy gap between our present selves and our future selves, we start to think more about what we could do now to be kind to ourselves down the line. So the idea here is just to try to get to know your future self. Because when we spend time connecting with that person, we do some reverse engineering and we start to ask our present self questions about how our present and our future can come together. Or meet somewhere in the middle. Along the way. We start to ask questions like, How has everything I think I want going to fit? Or what does all this mean about what I need to be doing now? Or here's one of my favorite questions to ask yourself at any age. If I'm in a job or a relationship or a situation I would like not to be in five years, then how much longer am I going to spend on this

 

Pete Cohen  17:13

was fascinating, absolutely fascinating, the empathy gap. And if you don't have empathy for the person, it's very hard to have empathy. For someone that you don't know. Right? That if you do know the person that you're becoming what's possible. This is a lady who has been through who's currently one of our members of the stock one start one listen to her talking about her relationship to her future self

 

Speaker  17:41

I can honestly say, I'm doing things now in my personal life. I have opportunities literally jumping out at me every single day. Because I think my whole perspective in life has not been well I can reach that little bit. Let's just wait here and see what happens. I'm going to you know what, I've got no idea what I can reach, but let's just go for it anyway. So it's been amazing to me personally, I don't think is there is nothing to consider. Just do it. Because the minute you start engaging in it, yes. You'll have all the anxieties, the fears, the worries, the doubts, the the actual, is this real is this going to be working for me? You all of those questions will only be answered when you start doing it.

 

Pete Cohen  18:24

You know, that's the challenge, right? When we start anything, I mean, how many of us have started things with great intentions? We've all done it right. And I think that we we underestimate a couple of things. We underestimate how many times in our life, we've actually done that you bought a book, you've signed up to a course or something joined the gym and you didn't go, you know, this is why there's an ancient Sanskrit word which has been around first written words. There's a word that identifies that, but I don't know what people started all those years ago that they didn't finish yet compared to now. How many things are there that you could start? You know, how many podcasts could you listen to? How many clubhouse rooms could you go? How many people can you follow on LinkedIn and how many people can you put your focus? How many things could you start or not finish? And I think there's never been a more important time for us to make that decision. Make that decision of who we are choosing to become. So when we look at the threats so far we have discussed. We don't have a connection to our future self. Well, we do but it doesn't go very far. Just remember that everything we do is for our future just for most people. The view of the future is is today. Who are you going to be tonight, who you're going to be next week who you're going to be next month. Most of us know this. And some of you know the story of when my wife wasn't given very long to live. And my coach when he was alive. He basically said Ask her what she's going to do when she gets better. I didn't ask her that for three years because the first thing I did was find a cure for cancer first of all, and we did and she's alive and well. 12 years later on, and three years after he said that to me. I asked her and I said, Rafael asked me to ask you what you're going to do when you get better. And she cried. Why? Because her view of the future didn't go very far. And I really admire anyone imagine someone you've been given basically a death sentence and you still decide to see beyond that. To see beyond that, I'm not buying into that. And most of us are buying into the story that we're telling ourselves every single day of why we can't do something. And that's the narrative. One of the biggest threats to your future self is the narrative that you're telling yourself. You know if I could step inside your head and I could record what you were saying I could play it back to you. You'd probably go wow, I can't believe I'm saying that to myself, but it's okay. It's just what you do. Don't look at it as right or wrong. It is what it is. Is it nourishing you is it? Is it helping you build the future that you want but you don't know the future that you want and if you don't know the future that you want you're in trouble. You've got to start prospecting. Listen to Dr. Benjamin Hardy talking about prospection

 

Speaker  21:08

there's a concept in positive psychology that's pretty much changed how a lot of psychologists view everything about people. It's called prospection. And what the idea of prospection is, is that as human beings, one of the things that makes us fundamentally different from all other species is that we have the ability to think about and imagine our future. Not only that though, whatever you see for your future, your future self is the thing that drives your current self more than anything else. Whatever. You see for your future is the thing driving your your views, your identity, your behavior in the present. This is why hope is so powerful. If you have a hopeful, purposeful, exciting future, then what do you think that does for your present? It means you're motivated, you're exciting, you're clear, you're intentional, if you're hopeless towards the future or pessimistic towards the future. What do you think that does to your current self? So your current self is not just a floating entity, it's very heavily impacted by obviously your view of your future and your view of your past. But prospection shows that it's actually your view of your future far more than anything else that drives your behavior. It drives everything and what's even more amazing is that you can really imagine and shape whatever future you want and then that dictates what you do in the present. It dictates your energy in the present. It dictates your behavior in the present, the better you get at visualizing planning for and creating your future self, the better your life will be in the present, the more intentional it would be. The more courageous you'll be. The more you can learn the more you can transform, the more you can have peak experiences. You can have peak experiences if you can see feel and create a desired future self and then watch yourself stick takes small or big steps in that direction. That's how you actually build confidence. So in this

 

Pete Cohen  22:42

video, so who's ready, who's ready for this? Who's ready to go and pursue themselves? Who's ready to build a relationship with their future self? Because I'm not messing about with this. I've mentioned earlier on that, you know, last year we launched this program, 2.8% of people completed it. That to me doesn't work. You know, that's like no way. I'm going for 30% I'm looking for 30% of people that engage with our content. To have the results they're looking for. That is why we launched the stop one, start one to help people identify with their future self and then create capital capital in your investment in bringing that person down in terms of picking something to stop something to start and getting into the most incredible thing that we can all do, which is start to apply the law of accountability, the law of compounding over time, there's no better way. But you first off, you've got to start. You know you got to start somewhere. You know where you've got to look right once really, are you ready? To make nothing feels better than you growing advancing.

 

Pete Cohen  24:10

So the next time you look in the mirror, just take a moment to realize you've just met the most incredible human being. See the

 

Matthew McConaughey  24:22

sun as a sphere because they got

 

Pete Cohen  24:37

away are you ready guys? Are you ready?

 

Pete Cohen  24:51

So when you look in the mirror next, just take a moment to see that person in the mirror as your future self. That is your present self. And as we start to wrap this up, we're looking at these five threats. What's the first one it's not having a connection to your future self that expands beyond a few months. We all have a connection to our future self. We all do. We all know who are going to be today or tomorrow or next week or next month. But then beyond that, we don't know who that person is going to be. We've seen this in the lab we've wired people's brains up. We know that people that don't associate with their future self they see that person as a stranger beyond a few months. And then the last couple of points I want to make it is hugely massively under estimating what you are actually capable of doing. If you stop for a moment and you thought about what you've done in your life, already, and you took a moment to think about that. But you know what, you don't have to listen to me. Listen to Professor Daniel Gilbert, about he talks about the underestimation of what we've done and what we could do

 

Speaker  25:58

with the ease of remembering versus the difficulty of imagining. Most of us can remember who we were 10 years ago but we find it hard to imagine who we're going to be and then we mistakenly think that because it's hard to imagine, it's not likely to happen. Sorry when people say I can't imagine that. They're usually talking about their own lack of imagination. And not about the unlikelihood of the event that they're describing. The bottom line is, time is a powerful force. It transforms our preferences, it reshapes our values, it alters our personalities. We seem to appreciate this fact, but only in retrospect only when we look backwards. Do we realize how much change happens in a decade. It's as if for most of us, the present is a magic time. It's a watershed on the timeline. It's the moment at which we finally become ourselves. Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they're finished the person you are right now is as transient as fleeting and as temporary as all the people you've ever been. The one constant in our life

 

Pete Cohen  27:09

is change. I absolutely love Professor Daniel Gilbert. Unbelievable. I mean, how much more evidence do you want about creating the importance of creating relationship with your future self so that that fourth threat is just you underestimate yourself? I talked in a previous podcast about the conspiracy theory of what Brene Brown talks about where we find ourselves in a situation that maybe is challenging, and then we start a conspiracy of why we can't do it. We get in our own way. And maybe now is the time for all of us to wake up and realize that we are who we just underestimate what we've done. You've done so well to get here. And what I have seen from so many people who have done incredible things is a lot of that wasn't necessarily conscious it things happened and they reacted in a conscious way. But what would happen if you absolutely decided who you are going to become or what you really wanted to do, and realize that if that's what you want to do, that the obstacles that you're going to face along the way you need those obstacles. This is another threat but we'll talk about this another time is knowing you need the obstacles. I'm everyone arms with me arms, oh double M S. M arms. Obstacles make me stronger. The old Chinese proverb a path with no obstacle doesn't doesn't go anywhere. You need these obstacles. And the last thing I want to say about this is legacy. Legacy. I don't know about you, but I'm leaving a legacy. I'm leaving anyway. But what type of legacy do I want to leave? You know, for years, with many people who are into personal development, you hear of Stephen Covey, talking about begin with the end in mind and he's talking about the end of your life. But why don't we go beyond the end of your life? Why don't we go 10 years beyond the end of your life or 50 years beyond the end of your life? Dr. John Demartini when I got to know him and I interviewed him, he said 1000 year legacy you know, we're still talking about Muhammad was still talking about Buddha. We're still talking about Jesus Christ. You know, we're still talking about Ghandi. We're still talking about Martin Luther King. We're still talking about Bob Marley. Well, they still be talking about you and maybe you don't care. I don't really care what people are saying about me, but I do care. That I've left a mark on this earth. And I can tell you from someone who has studied the human condition, like I've not I've never stopped studying myself and finding humor in me. But I think most people do want a legacy. And the reason why the New Zealand Rugby team is the most successful sporting team in history. It's just all about legacy. If you play one game or you play 100 games, it's all about you leave that team in a better place because you were there. And boy, do we need people right now who want to play that game? Now you could think about that game and say, Well, you know what, there's just too difficult. There's too many things going on. There's this war. There's that situation. There's that virus. Yeah, but who could you be? Who could you be on the back of this? Now, I don't know exactly. What is the most the biggest takeaway from this podcast today? But let's just do a little recap. What are these threats the first threat is you don't have a compelling relationship to your future self that expands very far. You relate to who you are today, like when you were young? That was for me, I wasn't interested in next month unless of course I was going holiday I was interested in make some money, have some fun. That's all I was interested in. drinking, playing sport, going to nightclubs all of those things. That's what I was interested in. But you know what, I'm not interested in that stuff anymore. I'm more interested in stuff which is more impactful, where I can leave a bigger mark on this earth and just basically have more fun by carving out the better version of me. If you don't have that connection to your future self. You'll just keep repeating. The second threat is you see your future self as another person you don't see it as you so that your present self becomes the person who's present and makes all the decisions based on the decisions that you've made before. The third threat is a lack even then, a lack of empathy. You don't empathize with your future self. If you don't empathize, empathize empathize with your future. Self. You'll probably be quite hard on yourself. And the fourth is where you just you don't really have hope.

 

Pete Cohen  31:57

You have this pessimism. There's a term now that this European term around Europeans are very pessimistic and now that's happening more and more in America, the divide and then the, this actually I'm going to give you six. The fifth is you just underestimate. You just underestimate who you are. You seriously underestimate who you are and what you can do. And you underestimate the future of what you've done. And what you could do if you put your mind to it. Look, having worked with World Champions in sport, Olympic record holders, world record holders, I know when they come to see me and we help them identify who they want to be. It's that difficult conversation where I've had to say to them, you're not that person that you've just identified with that gold medal around your neck. I'm sorry, if you were you wouldn't be here. If you want to be that person. Let's do it. Let's work together. I'm a coach. And that's what I've done. That's what we've done in Mi365 my intentions now delivered getting your mind right that's why we created stock one, start one we created it, and it will become one of the biggest movements in the world of people who want to go out and pursue themselves. And the last threat is you're not creating a great, greater legacy you've committed to a legacy that isn't is not as inspiring as it possibly could be. But look, I've said a lot here. And I really want to take a moment to thank you for being you. And thank you for listening and thank you for giving me your attention. And thank you to being open to the possibilities that exist for you because you can be driven by pain. And suffering. Or you can be driven by the person that you want to become. And I want to leave playing a clip that I've played a lot and I play this clip every single day to remind myself of who I'm pursuing. This is Matthew McConaughey here with his Oscar winning speech when he talked about who his hero is.

 

Matthew McConaughey  33:58

And to my hero. That's who I chase. Now, when I was 15 years old, I had a very important person in my life come to me and say, who's your hero? And I said, I'm not going to think about that. Give me a couple of weeks. I come back two weeks. Later, this person comes up and says, who's your hero? I thought about it. You know who it is. I said it's me in 10 years. So I turned 2510 years later that same person comes bingo so your hero and I was like, not even close. No, no, she said why? I said because my heroes me at 35 So you see every day every week every month and every year my life my heroes always 10 years away. I'm never gonna be my hero. I'm not gonna pain that I know. I'm not and that's just fine with me because that keeps me with somebody to keep on Chase. So if any of us whatever those things are, whatever it is, we look up to whatever it is we look forward to and whoever it is we're chasing to that I say amen. to that. I say all right, all right. All right.

 

Pete Cohen  34:56

Absolutely fascinating, right? Then you just find that amazing that even as an actor, you know, he's we're all actors in life. This is it guys. We've all come together. These are our stories. You're listening to this podcast right now. And after this, where are we going? Well, that's where the magic is. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I'd love to know what was your biggest takeaway from what you've just heard? And subscribe to the Future Self Podcast. And let's do this. Not now. But right now.