14 Jun, 2022

Pete Cohen  0:01

Happy beautiful day. It is the Future Self podcast. today's podcast is called 5 Habits to Get Your Life Back On Track. I'll see you after the theme tune.

 

Pete Cohen  0:34

Happy beautiful day. Thank you for joining me for the podcast. Six years of podcasting, can you believe it? Even before I don't know why I've just started talking like that, like I'm from New Zealand.

 

Pete Cohen  0:51

There's a lot of funny things that go on inside my head. That's why our theme music, creative things that are stuck in some

 

Pete Cohen  1:03

I think it's fascinating being a human being don't you

 

Pete Cohen  1:15

a spectrum from my Hey, what is stuck inside your head?

 

Pete Cohen  1:21

Many things and you know we're talking about habits today we're talking about five habits to get your life back on track. Well, how is your life are you on track track with what I was reading about one of the Apollo missions and I'm sure it's pretty much the same with any rocket that goes into space. Just how much of that time is with the rocket? Of course, I was seeing that they were saying that it's quarter of a million miles to Mars not Mars to the moon. And then the time that the the rocket is in the air, literally for 98% of the time it's off course. So it's all about cost correction. And I thought, Wow, that's fascinating, because I think that's like that for most people. And if you clearly don't know where you're going in life, then it's pretty obvious you're going to get knocked off course. I heard also someone say I thought this is brilliant. I wrote it down. If you don't know what you stand for, you fall for everything. And literally if you think about what's going on in the world right now this how many things how many people do you think in the world want our attention? I mean, I want your attention. I genuinely want your attention and I'm probably competing right now to keep your attention because before you know it, chances are you'll go somewhere else because something is calling you away from where you are. What's that? Well, I'd say it's your mind. And for someone who's been studying the human experience for as long as I have, you know, 30 plus years of just being curious about hey, what's it like being new? You know, when someone asked a question, how are you? What does that actually mean? In who invented that? How are you who was the first person that said, Hey, how are you? Why would anyone say that? Well, apparently it's quite biblical meaning how are you with with God? Now, I'm not going to talk about God. I'm going to talk about you that how are you with yourself? That's what it means to me. What's the experience? Like of being you remember Peter, Kay, the comedian, you know, saying how are you? How are you in yourself and kind of saying that as a joke, but how are you in yourself because this is the sort of stuff that we don't normally say, we don't really tell the world. How are we genuinely feeling? And I think it's important. I think it's important to acknowledge how you're failing, but it's a real fine edged sword because you can let your feelings take control. You can acknowledge your feelings, and you can learn to think greater than you feel. I just came back from Portugal in Spain working with some of the country's top UK golfers, young golfers and on one of the holes a photographer came up and said, Hey, can I take photos? I said, Yeah, but who are you and he actually works for the for the golf club. And he said, How are you? I went amazing. And he went, wow. He said, I never hear English people say that said really? What do you hear? He said, Not bad. Okay. And I think he's right, that I think a lot of people are genuinely scared to tell you about how they're feeling, the experience of being ourselves. So when we look at our brain, and we think, Okay, what's going on? What are the habits that we have? This is something you know, in 2003, I wrote a book called habit busting. And a book was published in Polish. It was published in Korean. It was published in Arabic, because this is a subject which a lot of people are interested in, and I'm just as interested in it now. As I ever have been, because why do we have them? Why do we have habits so before we delve into the five habits that will get your life on track? Let's look at why we have habits in the first place. And there's some different theories about this. But really, we have habits so that we can forget them. Think about that for a moment. We have them so we can forget them. It doesn't mean that we forget them. Unconsciously, but we forget them consciously so we don't have to know how to do them. This is the amazing thing about our brains and this is why we are still here. This is why we have survived. This is why we outlived many other animals. We outlived animals that were bigger than us. We outlive Neanderthals who have bigger brains than us. Because as human beings we have this incredible capacity to learn. Amazing Kopete I believe that we are designed to learn. We are designed to learn and evolve. We had to learn or we died. And I honestly believe if you stop learning if you stop investing in you, however you want to invest in you in your own stimulation of your senses through learning. I believe there's a part of you that will die and you will get you will succumb to temptation, lead us not into temptation, which is the Lord's prayer that I don't know whether the Lord can stop you from putting your hand in the cookie jar. But I know you can.

 

Pete Cohen  6:03

And it's fascinating. Such a fascinating conversation to have with people the experience of being you and to understand why you have habits while you have habits because that's how you survive. So if someone puts their hand out chances are you stick your hand out someone opens a door for you, you might say thank you if someone sneezes you might go bless you. Why would you say bless you. You want to bless the person that comes from the Black Death 13th century that people have said bless you, so I hope you didn't get the Black Death.

 

Pete Cohen  6:29

Isn't this fascinating? How many of you still eat what's on your plate regardless of the fact that you've had enough to eat? Why would you do that? Well because there are starving kids in the world. I remember being at school and being told to eat was on my plate. And I remember because there were starving kids in the world. I remember it was the time in Ethiopia. It was it was really tragic. And those scenes were on television. But literally I remember turning to the teacher and go Excuse me. I don't understand how does that help them? Can't you know I remember in my head thinking well, why don't we just send it to him? What What am I eating for them? I didn't understand it. But I learned to accept a lot of what I was told. And I've learned to accept a lot of the habits that I have the habit of what you know in what we have created.

 

Pete Cohen  7:12

You know recently with the stock one stock one we are really asking people just to stop and look and be curious. Because if you don't stop and look at what's going on, you don't audit it's like a business if you don't look and look at what the business is doing and where where everything is going good luck and having a business. But we're in the business of being ourselves, right? How's that working out for you? Again, you can judge it, you can criticize it because everyone's competing for your attention. How many people right now are competing for your attention? Just go on social media and look who's competing for your attention. How many people want you to listen to them? It's fascinating. There's never been a time in history where there's so many people that want to be heard. And they want your attention. What do they want? Maybe they've got something to give you. Maybe they've got something to sell you. But what are you selling yourself on?

 

Pete Cohen  8:04

See the word habit really what it means is it's not something a nun wears, because that's also what a habit means. But it's just something you do really without thinking about it. And I think there's probably a part of your brain that doesn't necessarily know that that habit is good or bad. Perhaps after you've done it, or even when you think of it but there's a part of your brain that says this is who I am. This is what I do. I'm a chocolate eater. I'm a I'm a lazy person. And you have evidence of that and that's who you think you will always be but you don't have to be who you are. You can be anything you want to be. Now I used to think that was a really cheesy line, didn't you? You can be anything you want to be what does that actually mean?

 

Pete Cohen  8:42

Well, I think we can change and I think human beings know that deep down we can rise above what's happened to us. We can we can reinvent ourselves and I love to ask this question. I ask it pretty much every single day. What will be your greatest ever achievement?

 

Pete Cohen  9:01

Is it possible that your greatest ever achievement will be who you become

 

Pete Cohen  9:09

so when we look at the five habits to to get your life back on track, the first habit is to just look at what you're doing stop and just stop. And maybe just take a couple of days and put a spotlight on yourself and if you want imagine if you really want to take this to the next level, which I'm sure you do, just imagine that you've employed a reporter and the reporter is coming around. And basically the reporter is going to be looking at what you do throughout the day. They've got access to all your view files, you've given them a free rein to you. So they can see everything you think everything you feel all the emotions they can see how you react and they've got full access to that for one day.

 

Pete Cohen  9:55

And then I just want you to think about after one day what information would they have gathered?

 

Pete Cohen  10:04

I remember doing this with some of our students from the Gulf college that I was a director of many years ago and I said right guys want to go out and play golf and I want you to imagine there's a reporter, he's got access to everything, everything. And I want you to write a report of the experience that he had watching what you did, and it was what they not everyone did it but some of them did. It was fascinating. It was hell it was hell on earth. It basically for a lot of these people, they'd stand up behind the ball, and the reporter would observe the fact that the person was thinking, Oh, don't hit it left or don't go right. Everyone's watching you, you better not make a mistake. And this this emotion started to build up the feeling of fear was manifesting basically. And I love their honesty about all of this. They were looking for something outside of themselves. They were looking for the game of golf to make them feel good about who they were. And even if they did do something, it was temporary. They never celebrated what they did. Well. They were looking for what's wrong for what was missing. And there was only one student, one student who what I read was beautiful. He he the reporter who was reporting what was going on inside his head was reporting it like it was an epic adventure. And for this person, it was like there when he hit the ball there was no good or bad it was what it was, as he went on this adventure. And he was the best golfer.

 

Pete Cohen  11:31

He actually played for England.

 

Pete Cohen  11:33

But unfortunately, he was in an arm wrestle with a guy called Tommy Fleetwood, who now is one of the greatest golfers in the world. And Tommy Fleetwood ripped John's elbow out of its socket.

 

Pete Cohen  11:46

And Jonathan was one of the most promising golfers in the country, and the world. He was a world ranking golfer as an amateur.

 

Pete Cohen  11:56

And that was the demise of his golfing career, but it wasn't the end of him. He actually has become a caddy for golfers and done extremely well. You know, life is difficult. Life is tough. There's no question about it. But if you don't look at what you're doing, and be curious about what's going on, you're just accept what's going on. And I think that the future will see two types of people I think it was there'll be people that just, they're just given, you know, they just literally their mind is not their own.

 

Pete Cohen  12:26

They're being sold to the highest bidder. The social experiment that many people have seen seen. There come there'll be even more addictive to social media. They'll just be gone. There won't be here. It's like the lights are on but there's nobody home. There's going to be more and more people like that. God knows what the metaverse will do, but like anything, there'll be, there'll be good there'll be bad however you want to look at it, but ultimately we still have freewill. We still have choice.

 

Pete Cohen  12:50

And that's why I'm going to ask you to do the first habit to get your life back on track is just become a reporter for one day for one day, and then just look at that day and think if that day was some summing up your whole life, what would you look at and go hang on a second here? I want to make some changes.

 

Pete Cohen  13:07

It's such a simple thing to do and I'd love you to do it. If this is something that you choose to do.

 

Pete Cohen  13:13

And you're not there to criticize it. Just pick one day and report what is going on.

 

Pete Cohen  13:20

That's the first thing I'd like you to do.

 

Pete Cohen  13:23

The second thing I want you to do

 

Pete Cohen  13:29

is to think about getting your mind right. So how do we get our mind right? Well in our business, which is Mi365 it's about my intentions now delivered. So when you look at what's going on, maybe just pick one thing that you think you know what I want to stop that I want to stop doing that. I want to stop pressing snooze for example, every every morning, which is a dangerous thing to do. There's been some fascinating studies about you know, when they say you snooze, you lose. But what it means is if you if you're snoozing, you'll probably be still being asleep mode even when you wait for about four hours because we tend to sleep in 90 minute cycles and if you go to sleep for 10 minutes, and then because you snooze and you wake up again and you do that a few times. You're going to have a problem to get go to get going. But some people will say well, I'm not a morning person. What does that mean? I'm not a morning person.

 

Pete Cohen  14:21

We're all morning people. It's probably just because you went to bed late.

 

Pete Cohen  14:25

You know that that's why we can't see we're not meant to be awake at night we can but otherwise we'd be able to see in the night. But what I'm asking you to do is to literally think of one thing that you would like to stop it for me the biggest thing that I stopped doing was last year and that was just to stop eating sugar and cut chocolate out completely. It was that easy to do. It. It was challenging the beginning but now it's it's easy.

 

Pete Cohen  14:58

Because I'm proved it's now this is what we in what we have created was step one, start one our goal is to get people to a point where the thing that was really difficult to do becomes something that they love to do, because they love to see their progress, which is the number three thing but number two is Pick something you want to start and then just have a go at doing and the best way to do it to get into the game of life. Mel Robbins, who is a speaker and as a coach. He's written a book called The Five second rule. And she just talks about 54321 And this is all about activation energy. It's really fascinating. I read when I found out about this, I thought well, I've been doing this for years in my own way. Because of Thunderbirds, how many of you remember the TV program Thunderbirds with the 543-214-3215 Imagine waking up tomorrow morning, three to one

 

Pete Cohen  16:18

go and this is what I was doing for four years. You know that program had a massive impact on my life. And I understood when you heard that TV program if you ever watched it, even if you've never watched it you hear this now, what is it that you feel compelled to do from hearing this?

 

Pete Cohen  16:36

4321

 

Pete Cohen  16:48

go you feel like going somewhere, don't you? You can't count up 12345 Because he goes 6789 10 Then I let her go again. 54321. What happens is it really engages the prefrontal cortex of your brain. The part of your brain goes What are we doing? Where are we going? It's actually really interesting because this is actually been shown to be really pivotal in what in habit creation, habit formation, in habit formation, the locus of control that are okay, I've got an act here. activation energy and small wins seem to get into the game of life because when we talked about feelings and acknowledging how you're feeling well how many people in the world right now clearly don't feel like doing something. Because we are designed also to conserve energy. Why are we designed to conserve energy? It's pretty obvious really so that when we need it, we've got it. But the fact is, if you look at most people in the world right now they've got too much energy on their body. But there's still a part of the brain that goes well we better conserve this.

 

Pete Cohen  17:44

Yet we know that nothing happens until you decide to go 4321

 

Pete Cohen  17:59

So it's interesting.

 

Pete Cohen  18:02

When we talk about the activation energy, we're talking about the Apollo mission before when a rocket goes off how much of its energy is actually used to get the thing going 54321 Just get going forget how you feel. Because if you're waiting to feel something, you probably won't feel anything but once you start that's when the activation energy comm that's where the inspiration comes to get into the game to reinvent yourself. I mean, it's such a simple thing. 54321 that most people would say I can't believe that something so simple. Could be so powerful. But get yourself in the game 54321 Get out of bed 54321 Move away from that glass of wine 543 Whatever you want to do to get yourself to move away from the things that are keeping you off track and 54321 to get into the game of things that will keep you on track.

 

Pete Cohen  18:46

And that's what we've done with step one, start one. When you start this you you can only pick one of each and some people go ready just one of each. Yeah, no just one of it's just one of each. Why? Because if you pick one, you might do one.

 

Pete Cohen  19:02

And if you pick two or three, you probably won't do any. And once you get really good at doing something after 30 days or 30 times. We then want to give you the opportunity to do it again to get in the game.

 

Pete Cohen  19:16

Are you ready to get into the game?

 

Pete Cohen  19:19

Are you ready to show the world what you really are all about?

 

Pete Cohen  19:24

Because I'm ready to help you.

 

Pete Cohen  19:27

So we've looked at the first one, be a reporter. See what's going on.

 

Pete Cohen  19:32

Then decided to stop or start something and then 54321

 

Pete Cohen  19:40

Zonda.

 

Pete Cohen  19:48

See the power that human beings have is incredible. The ability we have to overcome the ability we have to

 

Pete Cohen  19:59

I want I'd love you to do right now is just to take a moment and just look at life with a fresh pair of eyes

 

Pete Cohen  20:12

because you know what? I think life is very competitive. We compete with ourselves as much as everybody else.

 

Pete Cohen  20:19

And I really want you to think of yourself as a sportsman a sportsman or sports person of your life. You know you are competing How is your health and energy right now? How is it is there work to be done? Is there room for improvement? And the same with your relationships? Is there room for improvement? I know there's always room for improvement with my relationship with my wife. I know that there's always something I can do. There's always I can always be better. I can always be a better version of me and the same with my work. I can still make more of a difference. Because what is life unless you're evolving and that brings us to the third habit to get your life back on track which is to record, record what you're doing measure what you're doing and believe you me this isn't something that is really I have always liked to do. But I understand you know, when we created our journal, I realize the impact that was having on people to track to track what you're doing when you're doing how you're doing it.

 

Pete Cohen  21:20

And it's it's the research around all of this is just fascinating. You're in the results producing business. So when you when you think about your time it is the most valuable asset, but to track what you're doing because when you start tracking it you'll start to see that you can eliminate what is not serving you because left to their own devices. What happens to man? What do you think happens to human beings when they're left to their own devices? Well I think we drift to stay on track.

 

Pete Cohen  21:58

And this is what Napoleon Hill wrote about all those years ago how you know what a clever man and just to observe but he observed enough and spoke to enough people to see in his number was 98% of people were drifting and think about what were they drifting towards back in the 1920s. What what was there that pulled on people's attention that pulled them away? Well, there was obviously alcohol, you know, what else was there? TV radio, what else was there? There wasn't a huge YouTube didn't exist, there wasn't iPhones. All these things that are pulling us away.

 

Pete Cohen  22:33

Ultimately, I think it's just time like never before to decide who the hell do we actually want to be?

 

Pete Cohen  22:39

Who do we want to be?

 

Pete Cohen  22:42

Look on the last two very simple, but just keep the score. This is what this is what we've created with the technology we've created with our app. It's all about tracking, go out and pursue the person you want to be. This is what Steven Bartlett said when I introduced him an event he goes I knew the person I was pursuing at 15 years old and it doesn't matter whether you're 15 or 50. You can still decide I mean think about it. Imagine if you were into 10 pin bowling and you were just bowling into a curtain. How many of you would do that? It would just be boring, right?

 

Pete Cohen  23:13

Imagine going to watch Venus Williams versus Serena Williams. And they were just hitting the ball between each other. Right? That just when a score comes in, and they start playing each other, it changes everything. You know, we were involved with pedometers many years ago and we knew and I came across studies around this was fascinating that people that used a pedometer and Iran's on a randomized trial. They walked a mile further on average. It's staying accountable. It dials up the intensity.

 

Pete Cohen  23:47

And the fourth thing is again, it's simple but go public. Tell the world say hey, hey, hey, this is me. This this is what I'm doing. Tell the world where you're going, who you becoming. Get yourself around, you know a group of people that really inspire you.

 

Pete Cohen  24:07

Especially if you want to

 

Pete Cohen  24:15

if you want to beat it

 

Pete Cohen  24:20

so Who's ready for the fifth of the habit?

 

Pete Cohen  24:26

life hacking, get your life back on track

 

Pete Cohen  24:34

because I tell you the odds in life are massively stacked against you. If you don't get your life back on track. And you know what? I'm going to be quite brutal here. I honestly think most people are living a future that they don't want. And yeah, at any point at any time, we can change the best time to plant a tree was what 20 years ago who said that? I'm not sure. The second best time is now. It's really interesting. I'm looking on Spotify. And I'm looking at a picture of Michael Jackson. And it's the 25 the world's biggest selling album of all time, which is a thriller.

 

Pete Cohen  25:09

And there's a picture of him surrounded by zombies. And I think the world is having more and more zombies, people that are just consuming. I want to wake people up. I really want to help people just look at life with a fresh pair of eyes. And look, I'm going to throw a bonus one and the fifth one is just don't miss a day. Just understand habit creation. Understand habit suicide, if you decide to do something and you don't do it for a day. Obviously it depends what it is. But for most things like meditating or keeping a daily practice of gratitude if you don't do it for a day, you can probably get away with that but if a day becomes two days

 

Pete Cohen  25:47

like if it's three days, it's what people now call habit suicide. It's like have to start all over again. Just be mindful of all of the work that you put in. That's why I admire people who who stopped drinking you know, go to AA or NA or whatever they those they choose to do and they they choose to create capital A choose look I'm 100 days or 1000 days. And the last thing a bonus one is to celebrate. Celebrate your success. Celebrate who you're becoming celebrate the small wins, you know.

 

Pete Cohen  26:21

Let's celebrate you wants to celebrate.

 

Pete Cohen  26:25

So what are the five thank you so much for listening to the podcast.

 

Pete Cohen  26:32

You ready?

 

Pete Cohen  26:35

So we're talking about celebrate what are these five things like the first one it's so simple, just take a bit of time to imagine you've employed a reporter for one day, and he's coming and he's got full access. He can see everything you think everything you feel, and he's putting it down. And he's going to present it to you so you can see it. And just be curious about what's going on and maybe with what you see or think you know what, there's something there I'd love to stop doing or I'd love to start doing just pick one one of each if you want or even just pick one stop, and then use that 54321 to get yourself to activate your energy to either move you towards the thing you want to do or move you away. It's a simple thing to do. It's also a very simple thing not to do and number three is keep the score, keep the score jack up your your commitment. Again, this doesn't necessarily mean this is going to work for everyone but nothing works for everybody. But we do see that what gets measured what gets tracked gets improved. We see that there's room for improvement.

 

Pete Cohen  27:35

And Number Number four is go public tell the world you know this, this is me this is what I'm doing. This is what it's all about. Number five, just don't miss a day with what you're doing. Because if you miss a day, it's challenging to get things back on track.

 

Pete Cohen  27:51

But just remember that like I said with the Apollo mission that's going to to the moon quarter of a million miles for every half an hour. He will only be on track for a minute.

 

Pete Cohen  28:03

And that's like us. You know, there's no such thing as you know, masterful days every day we can only just do the best with what we have and I do believe honestly that the most powerful force that we have is the power of looking to make things better. We know right now our world is in turmoil, which is definitely making people behave in a way that they they wouldn't you know we're seeing a kind of humankind we're seeing people give we're seeing people do and it's beautiful. Beautiful have to observe it's beautiful to see.

 

Pete Cohen  28:33

But after this, this disaster moves on Well, there's probably be another one around the corner. For us in the UK was Brexit, then COVID Then Putin. You know what's next because something else is coming. As Jim Rohn said, you're either moving towards a crisis in a crisis or coming out of a crisis. But despite the crisis, we can still choose who we become. We can still choose to go after things which inspire us. So when we look to the future, we get excited about the possibilities that exist for us. So what was your biggest takeaway from the podcast? Feel free to reach out to us tell us we want to know however you choose to do that. Instagram is a good place LinkedIn, Facebook, send us a message drop us a line. We want to know we want to inspire as many people as we can because our whole existence and what we do with our business is about getting your mind right my intentions now delivered, filling in those gaps between where you are and where you want to be. Thank you for listening to the podcast five habits to get your life back on track. We'll we'll see you next time. Goodbye.