20 Jul, 2022

Pete Cohen 0:00
Happy, beautiful, amazing day. It is Pete Cohen, welcome to the Future Self podcast. today's podcast is called 7 Signs You Need to Change Habits. I will see you after the theme tune.

Pete Cohen 0:44
Hey, happy beautiful day. Thank you so much for joining me for another Future Self podcast. Let's get ready to rumble Oh yeah, let's get ready to rumble This is the subject of habits is something I'm very passionate about having written a book in 2003 called habit busting that yes was published in multiple languages around the world I never get never forget getting a copy of it in Korean and I got I think I got four copies of it in Korea. And yeah, I never knew anyone from Korea very well. But when I did, boy did I give him a copy of that book. Also got a copy of it and in I've got four copies of it in Arabic. And I remember when I went to Dubai, I took copies of it there. And it was just amazing because it's such a fascinating subject Would you not agree? habits? I think it really are. They are our superpower. I think that is where the magic of of human beings are for us to be able to look at ourselves and stop and look look at the habits that we have and look at the ones that service look at the ones that don't serve us and then go to work on bringing our best self forward. So is this something you're interested in? Are you interested in improving? Because if you are well then you've got to look at where does your power reside? And we all know that we live in a world that is pretty crazy. We're not really designed to live in this world. We kind of live in a world that kind of people think we're weird if we're deciding to break habits. It's like why would you break a habit? Why don't you just conform and be like everybody else? But I really want to when we talk about seven sides, seven signs you read you need to change your habits. Maybe we should have called this seven signs. You need to change your health. Because what is the most valuable thing that you own? Right, come on, tell me what is the most valuable thing that you own? Some people say well, it's my house and in most cases they don't own their house. They maybe own a bit of it or say that children you know what, you don't own your children right there on a lease. And some people would say their health and that's actually a top answer. You know, if you asked me asked 100 people, there used to be a TV program called Family Fortunes here in the UK. And you had two families competing against each other. And one member of the family would come up and against another member and they'd ask a question like we asked 100 people what is the most valuable thing they own? And it was the first one to press a button. And if we asked that question, where do you think health might be? Well, it put let's just say it was number one. So people will say that health is the most valuable thing that they own. But yet when you look at someone's life, you might think well hang on, hang on a second will will will will Whoa. That's what you're saying. It's what you're saying. But can you demonstrate that to me? Can you demonstrate to yourself how important your health is. And I know that it's not particularly an easy thing to do, because we'll look into this and this is really what I want to look at. I want to look at health. And I want to look at the seven major areas that I believe are absolutely essential for us to address and look at and kind of be curious about for us to really have a measure of how our health is. I think it revolves around seven things that I'm going to share with you. Do you have any idea what those seven are? Well, I'll tell you, none of them will surprise you. It's your ability to eat right move right drink, right think right talk right sleep right and poop, right? Your ability to do all of those things. To eat right to move right to drink, right to think right? To talk right to sleep right and to poop or to eliminate right your health. If you could look at those things if he really wanted to see how your health was, and you weren't going to do detailed blood analysis and other tests that you could do just to be able to look at your health. And we know that a lot of people don't want to look at their health because maybe they'd have to face up to the fact that it's not where it could be. And sometimes ignorance is bliss, just to kind of think that the health challenge you have and there's nothing you can do about it. This is such an important subject. So what is health? What does it actually mean? Well, I think we need an upgrade on the word because the word means a state of being free from illness or injury. So what does that mean? What is the state of being free from illness or injury men? Think you think that's all for a person's mental and physical condition. That's maybe a bad definition, a feeling of intense happiness. See, for me a state of being free from illness or injury is like its state of just hanging in the air like well, just being neither healthy or unhealthy. But how many of you would like to have great health great energy? I mean, it's something that many of us have had in our life, but I think as we've gotten older, many of us think well,

Pete Cohen 5:45
hmm that's a really quite crazy, and this might seem quite hard hitting but let's just be honest here. There are simple and easy strategies for great health. We know that but if that's what you want to do, you're going to have to deviate away from what everyone else is doing. And that boils down to choice and the easiest thing to do is to follow everybody else. Have you seen that TED Talk? Where the guy's talking about this lone dancer in a field is jumping up and down. And all you can see is the dancer but you can tell that there's hundreds of people behind the camera that you can't see. And it's like the person's being you can kind of tell that the person's being ridiculed a little bit. And he's dancing this dance, he doesn't care what other people are thinking. And then eventually another dancer comes up and starts dancing with that person, and then another one, then another one and another one, another one. And there's no question that a revolution is needed with a health that there's no question about that. And you can look at statistics in Great Britain, but let's just look at the statistics in America. 97.3% of Americans are unhealthy by four basic measures, which are the either smoke they don't eat a healthy, balanced diet. They don't do 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week and then they say a female their body fat is over 30 And if they're a male, it's over. 20 50% of Americans have a chronic health condition. 68% are obese 70% are on prescription medication. By the time they're 60 years old, their average of five prescription medications 80% of Americans are mentally and emotionally challenged here in the UK 40% of doctor's visits. Someone was telling me the other day, right now because of mental challenges that people are facing. So there's something going on but I suppose the irony of all of this is well, what can we do? biggest killers in the world are preventable. Isn't that crazy? The biggest killers in the world. They're all preventable. And, as Socrates said, Know thyself. To Know thyself for me is a practice for me. I'm never going to know myself because completely because every day new challenges seem to come up which forced me to go and look at myself in a more deeper way. So we want to look at magnificent health so you know what health is. It's the state of being free from illness or injury. For me a better definition of health is renewal. The renewal of your mental and physical condition, right, that leads to a feeling of intense happiness. When we look at magnificent which is a word I love and who loves that word magnificent, The Magnificent Seven, because that's the seven that we've been we're going to be talking about the seven key areas that really bring about great health. The word magnificent means grand, eloquent, splendid in appearance, great energy, difficult to achieve. I like that requiring great effort or ability. Would you not agree that human beings we are at our best when we're doing something that's difficult and challenging? So it's not for me, it's not about having a perfect day. It's just about you know, challenging yourself to be better to go into battle to battle for what? Well, that's up to you. What are you battling for some people are battling for their life, in terms of their health. I think we're battling for our health every day, but I'm battling for the world that I want to see I'm battling for the person that I want to become. That's my life. That's my life's work. My life's work is me becoming who I want to be. And I didn't know who I wanted to be. I knew who I didn't want to be for years. Most people know who they don't want to be. Most people will do something about their health only when their health gets really bad. Think about this for a moment. You are your own business card. Right now. You are your own business card. Isn't that fascinating? You are your own business card. You are your own promotion. Now you might not be able to see me but you can hear me. Right Kanye? I am my own business cards. So if you hadn't seen me for a while, and you'd see me before, and I was 100 pounds heavier. What would you think? If you saw me? What would be the first thing you would think? Is it all what's happened to Pete and you'd see a massive amount of inflammation or inflammation in my body. Do you know there's a new word in the medical literature now called inflammation which basically refers to the older we get, the more prone we get to inflammatory conditions and inflammatory conditions are all the biggest killers, but they're all preventable from being obese. diabetes, cancer, dementia, outsiders high blood pressure, you name the condition you will see there's more than likely an inflammatory aspect to it.

Pete Cohen 10:20
It's one way to think about right if you want to think about it, but you don't you can stop you can turn this off if you want if this is too much for you, but I'd love to help you and support you. That's what we've been doing. Because your future self, the person that you could come is pretty disappointed in you right now. Probably. You know, when I was eating huge amounts of chocolate. My future self was really disappointed in me because my future self said You know, if you keep doing that, you're going to become diabetic right now. I'm looking at a big piece of Swiss chocolate. That's in its wrapper called the Toblerone, which I asked my father in law to buy me at Christmas, because I'm not going to eat any chocolate. And I'm looking at it. And I'm feeling the power that I have to say no, because every act is a vote for the person that you want to be. Let me say that again. Every act that we do every day is a is a vote for the person that we want to be. Do you know the person that you want to be? And again, we talk about this a lot on this podcast. People don't know the person they want to be they know who they are right now. And and how you are who you are right now is probably going to be very similar to who you're going to be tomorrow unless you make a decision. Small actions go a long way. The thing is, we want transformation. Now we want everything now change my life right now, rather than rather than realizing that real transformation happens over time. So I'm curious, do you want to come on a revolution? Are you ready for a health revolution? Even if you're healthy, let's get healthier. So what are habits? Why do we have them in the first place? Well, we happen to conserve energy basically. That's why we have habits to conserve energy. And it's really important that we look at it like that we have habits to survive. We have habits to get out of pain. We are energy saving devices. We have the habit of not wanting to do things that expend energy that don't see a result or in our own investment. You know, so that's why cavemen never would have gone for a run. Would they why would they have gone for a run unless they had to of course, because they have to conserve energy. Why get up and turn the television even though now he is ago, the television, there were buttons on the television, you had to go and press them. Then they invented remote controls, it still had buttons on the television. Now there are no buttons or you got to go and find the buttons. So we're living in a world that is basically pushing us to conserve energy even more to sit in our chairs for an extended period of time to look at our phone. And we know that this is killing us, because we're not designed to do that. What are we designed to do? Well, that's up to you to decide. But I believe we're designed to evolve to grow, to create, to move. And most people now are majoring in procrastinating ruminating getting distracted making excuses and watching TV. Right that's what people are doing. But what's the cost of that? That's the thing. I'd love everyone just to consider for a moment the cost of procrastinating the cost of ruminating which is going over and over and over something without doing something procrastinating as you probably know, for those of you that listen to my podcast, you know that there's three elements to to that, right there's three elements to procrastinating. It's fascinating. We've all done it, and we'll probably all continue to do it. Perhaps we can do less of it. procrastinating basically is when you have the intention to do something, and then you voluntarily you make a voluntary decision to not do it. And then you feel bad because you know that something that you could have done or you know that you shouldn't have done it. And it's because I think that down somewhere down within us we'll probably know. And I think that were kept from our goals, not not by the guy. I don't think we lose sight of the goals that are important. I think we lose sight of the importance of our health and evolving and moving I don't think we lose sight of it. But we just see a clear path to nearer goals. Not fascinating when I first got my head around that there's not that we lose sight of what's important. I think some doubt somewhere deep inside is we know really what's important and we know that drinking extra glass of wine or eating that that doughnut or whatever it is. We know it's not good for us we know but it's just because we want something now. And a lot of that is because we're in pain. You know, we're packed, we're in pain. We're uncertain. I was talking to some people about this the other day that is it any surprise. Human beings are amazing. We're so adaptable. That's why we're here on Earth. But we adapt and no one really talks about the cost of the adaptation right the cost of COVID the cost of Brexit, the cost of ads if you're in Europe, if it has cost you anything, Brexit it's costing us right now here in the UK, the brilliant idea not that's just my opinion. You know, this war that's going on, well, how do people feel? But even before that, we live in a world that wants us to feel less than not good as to compare ourselves to others. That then makes us behave in ways that doesn't serve us in the long term.

Pete Cohen 15:09
So I really want us to when we think about the seven signs you need to change your habits. Let's look at health. Because for me great health is a practice it's not a destination. And again, that's a massive challenge of living on this earth because everyone wants a result. And Simon Sinek who everyone probably will most people know for his work around why which is going to why we do what we do. I think there's some real limitations in that work. But that's just my opinion. I think it's great what he's saying, but I like what he says about the games we play the infinite and finite finite games. He talks about how business operates. Many businesses operate in a finite way. As if it's all about the result, we get the result. But then what business is infinite, it doesn't stop. And it's the same with our life. You know, being healthy. It doesn't stop until you're not here anymore. So the practice of health is really important. So I'm going to just touch on these on these seven nificent seven for health. And the seven signs you need to change your habits would be well let's just look at this from this is something that we designed. We designed this it's a part of our stock one stock one challenge where we really encourage people to look at these seven elements and to grade them because it can give you a really good picture of your health. So they are to eat right to move right to drink right to think right to talk right to sleep right to poop, right? The seven key areas that if we could have them more imbalance lives would transform so food eat and we know that foods the change our emoji foods have been designed, as most people know to change our emotions that activate our addictive circuits. So when many years ago, food manufacturers found a way of putting sugar and fat and so together because there are no foods that naturally contain all three. So when you put all of those together and many other chemicals, it creates addiction addiction. You know, Toblerone is designed so that once you have one bite, you want to have another bite. Whereas broccoli which most natural foods have high amount of nitrogen in it, which will actually tell your brain that you've actually had enough and one of the biggest killers in the world is malnutrition. And that's not because just because people are starving, it's also because people who are eating an excess of food are eating food that is malnourished. And you know, we come into a world and we become dependent on people and we kind of rely on people to take care of us. I still think today many people are still thinking that someone else is going to take care of them and maybe you're lucky that because you do need help that people can take care of you. But a lot of people again, they don't want to face the fact that the food that we eat that is deficient in vitamins and minerals. It's been overworked, it's missing. So if we're not supplementing our diet we were we've got a problem. And we know again you know sugar is slows down the immune system it damages the body, especially refined sugar, but some people would even say we grew up thinking orange juice and apple juice was was a good thing to have and cereals and bread and pasta. You know these were the foods but that was designed by the department of agriculture in America that made a food pyramid that basically said these are the foods to eat. It wasn't designed by the Department of Nutrition. But one thing one thing's for sure whether you're a vegan or a meat eater or vegetarian or pescetarian one thing all nutritionist agree on is green. Vegetables. You know that how many people do you know that eat an excess of green vegetables? So to look at this is just kind of looking at a lot of the food that we eat. I mean, I don't I can go into a supermarket now and I'd say 90 probably 98% of what I see. Or 95 Who knows 95% I don't choose to eat that food. Because if man made it, I'm staying away. If God made it, I'm going to have it. It's natural. I'm going to eat it. But that means that I'm giving up some of the instant gratification, the ice cream and all those foods that I used to eat, I don't eat anymore. So we could talk a lot about eating but just on a scale, let's say of zero to five, how would you rate your health? Your it's just from an eating point of view. Again, don't judge it. Don't analyze it. Just be curious about it. So what about move? How important is movement? Well, as I've already mentioned, cavemen only would have moved one reason because they had to, and we know that our body is designed to move we know that life is motion we know that our brains reward our body.

Pete Cohen 20:04
Our brain's reward our body for movement. You don't feel like moving in many cases. How many people don't feel like exercising, they think about pain so they avoid exercising because they associate pain to it. Yeah, when they start, they feel better for having done it. Isn't that fascinating? Do you not do not find that fascinating? That you could think about exercise and immediately just by thinking about it in your head. You associate pain to it or discomfort. So you want to avoid that. And we procrastinate about it we ruminate about it. Rather than let's get in the game, because movement is life. Life is motion. Movement energizes every single cell of the body when I read Kelly McGonigal his book, The Joy of movement, and she talks about a study where it showed that the average amount of daily steps the app that humans take around the Earth is 5649 steps a day. And people that do less than 5649 steps. That number is associated with increased risk of depression and anxiety. What's the average amount of steps? The average amount of steps that people take. So let me say that again because I said it incorrectly. People that do less than 5649 steps are more prone to depression and anxiety. The average around the world is 4961. So what does that say? And then people will say, Well, why didn't you move more? And what do you think the most common answer is? I don't have time or I don't feel like it. Yet, we know that this is only going to go one way. And I remember my first degree was in sports science. And I remember reading about these studies where people were who exercise were asked to stop and within seven days a lot of these people started suffering from depression and anxiety because they had that habit. Look in terms of drinking so many people around the world. So give yourself a score zero to five on movement. And I'm not just talking about exercise, you know that that's one part I'm talking about daily movement throughout the day. And then when we look at the the next area the third day a drink, right. So again, we could talk about this for ages, but most people are dehydrated. Two thirds of the Earth is water. Two thirds of us is made of water, ourselves. Everything is made of water. So if we're not drinking water then we've got a problem. And in terms of eating and drinking, you know many of you know one of the first podcasts I did was with Dr. Rakowski, one of the top functional medicine doctors in the world. And we've spoken at numerous times about the Magnificent Seven but it's it's for me it's not a subject you just talk about once you know that I've done that now I've done health. It's a subject that you return to. And for me personally I've been consuming water in the form of coffee that is infused with a Chinese mushroom called Ganoderma that has nearly 3000 medical studies on it. It has all of the fabulous 50 And it's got 430 unique molecules. it modulates the ante and the inflammatory process. It blocks a viral replication. I mean, there are just some foods on earth that are beyond superfoods like a superhero, people things that just do so much, but we're not really encouraged to know too much about these things. We have to be curious and decide to take responsibility. So let's look at so give yourself a score out of zero to five zeros. You don't drink any water. It's funny because I don't like drinking water. That's crazy, right? You're just not in the habit of drinking you are water. So zero to five and how much water you drink a day. So let's look at the fourth area which is think think write again on a scale of zero to five. The brain is the most nutrient dependent, energy dependent stress vulnerable, toxic, vulnerable organ in the body. Most of us need a checkup from the neck up. And when we look at our thinking, I must admit my thinking last few days has been really challenged my ability to still maintain healthy thoughts that to use every trick in the book because I know my mind plays tricks on me.

Pete Cohen 24:42
What is your mind do they go to to just play a trick on you. In Hinduism they call it Maya Buddhism, they call it Dukkha. Which is your brain coming up with fantasies illusions. And if you don't step back from your mind, and that's why the practice of mindfulness and meditation is so important because that's one of the great ways to really get to know yourself. Get to know the makings of your mind. But in a world that doesn't want you to look at what's going on it wants you to consume and that's why the future will see two types of people, people that we've lost them, they've gone and people that are still here, creating evolving, and the metaverse even though I'm sure that will bring some positive things. I think we're going to see a lot of people escaping from this reality and entering into another reality and starting again. Who knows how that's gonna play out. But we can change our thinking, because our thinking produces our emotions our emotions produce our feelings are feelings produced our actions, our actions produce our outcomes. So how would you rate your thinking on a scale of zero to five and then let's talk about talk talk right now. We can talk about talking out loud like speaking like I'm speaking now and speaking well and speak using great words. But there's another type of talking which the people don't talk about, which is cell to cell communication. That's what the the endocrine system is the endocrine system in the body is the body's way of sending messages to other parts of the body. And then there's the paracrine system as well, which is basically cell to cell communication. All great relationships will require great communication all great relationships, require respect. Respect your neighbor respecting your body. And again, it's not always the easiest thing to do. It really isn't. Again, another reason why meditation and movement and eating well to allow your cells to fight off cancer cells to fight off infection. Co COVID woke up a lot of people around the world right? Didn't want to wake up or I'm overweight or more prone to this virus diabetic. You know, it was a real wake up call for a lot of people and for many people, now they're healthier. But that's a dangerous thing. When you get healthy and you get out of pain. Other people go back to where they were before unless we're inspired by our future selves, inspired by the person that we could become rather than buying into an idea that it's all downhill. No, it's all uphill. It's all it's all something to fight for. It's all something to grow for. What are you growing for? In what we've created and what we will continue to share with the world is a way where you can take your power back. That's what stock one stock one is all about. It's about you looking and getting curious about who could I become and if I want to be that person, what do I have to stop doing what I have to start doing? Or maybe starting to get the Magnificent Seven imbalance. So number six is sleep. Look, I've worked with elite performers for years. And Andres Erickson's book peak, his work on sleep is amazing because some people don't want to hear this but peak performers have on average 8.6 hours a night sleep hygiene. That you know the Romans knew about this. That's why they invested this siesta. The siesta comes from the number six which means after six hours you rest if you've got a rigorous routine, then you need rigorous sleep hygiene. Most people are under recovered. That's been my challenge, but I'm getting better at sleeping. Because I know that if I choose to train hard and play hard, I need to sleep hard. And again, it's the challenge right? Because of this the way most people are living their lives. Again, we could talk about this for a long time but hopefully this is just making you think maybe I could sleep better. Could you sleep better? Could you talk better? Could you think better? Could you drink better? Could you move better? Could you eat better? All of that will rely rely on will show you how you're pooping or eliminating or pooping as they say in America. People say you are what you eat. You are what you absorb. You are what you eliminate. I'd say you are what you don't eliminate.

Pete Cohen 29:19
And if you suffer from fatigue or sleep disturbance or toxins or distress or headaches, confusion, anxiety, you're probably not going to the toilet very well. You may be constipated or have got diarrhea or and yeah, it's just a sign of your health and your well being and the great thing is that most of us are lucky enough that we can still do something about this but the hard thing is just to do something. That's the hard thing, isn't it just to do something different? Because the novelty of changing the novelty factor. Oh, I'll try that. Oh, that was good. I never forget being stuck in Croatia. What 12 years ago or I met my wife. And there was this ash cloud where everything was grounded. Now there are no flights in Europe. We were stuck in Croatia with a whole load of other Europeans. It was amazing to see how people handled this situation. The Germans were like, you know, this one this way or that way? And they many of them just made a decision and they were gone. Whereas the English like oh, I don't know about that. I'm not sure what what are you doing while you're doing that? Okay. Okay, we'll do that. Oh, hang on. What are you doing? Oh, you're doing that? Oh, no, we won't do that. We'll do this or what should we do? Oh, I don't know I could do should do maybe. Where's the Spanish were like, Let's just have a siesta. Let's just let's just go with the flow. Now whether it doesn't matter where you're from, it's where you're at. And looking at your Magnificent Seven, and giving yourself a score out of five with all of those. You'll be able to see in the cold light of day, how your health is and maybe you could pick one thing to stop a one thing to start into the groove. Now, as Madonna would say their Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott said any serious attempt to do anything worthwhile worth well needs to be ritualistic. No, and that to me is where the magic is being ritualistic. ritualistic, not routines, ritualistic. This is what I do. So like I get up every day, four o'clock, I come downstairs. I drink a liter of water pretty much. I drink a couple of cups of coffee infused with the most powerful superfood in the world. I start learning. Then I get on my bike. And I exercise hard. Most of the time I do bits of stretching a little bit meditation back, let's go boom. So the cost of your good habits are in the present, the bad habits are in the future. So what I'm encouraging you to do is to understand that the biggest returns on your well being are always gonna be delayed. Right. And I want you to say this, this is my domain. This is my life. This is my territory. This is my backyard. This is me. This is what's important to me. I really appreciate you listening to you know the podcast because some of what I've said here is pretty full on. Your health is a state of being free from illness or injury. I don't like that term I like health is your daily renewal. It's your mental and physical condition. There's nothing better the feeling of intense happiness by knowing that you're improving your life mentally, physically, emotionally. The Magnificent Seven magnificent is grand, elegant, splendid. But what I love in that word is the difficult to achieve requiring great effort or ability. I want to change you change the statistics rather than 97.3% of people being unhealthy. Let's put those fingers back into the favor of us being healthy. So I wonder, What's your biggest takeaway from what you've just heard here today? I know that what we're doing is changing lives. I know I've been doing this for 32 years, and I've only just got started in helping people just like you get excited about who they could become and putting things into play. That's why step one start one I believe is the most powerful program or the most powerful challenge on Earth for you to get to know your future self and start practicing being that person every single day. So thank you so much for listening. We will be back for another Future Self podcast. You guys are amazing.