28 Feb, 2023

Pete Cohen  0:00

Happy beautiful day. It is Pete Cohen it is the Future Self Podcast. today's podcast is called 7 Steps to Success. I'll see you after theme tunes.

Hello, beautiful day it is the Pete Cohen Future Self Podcast. Thank you so much for being here. I think we must be close to not off 500 episodes 500 episodes of a podcast now. I'd say Well, I think that's pretty good. You don't think? I think it's seven years almost seven years of doing this and I'm as much in love with podcasting as I ever have been. Because I know that there are people that listen to this all over the world. We see our statistics we see that people in Macedonia are listening and speaking from Australia, all over all over the world. People are listening and we really appreciate that. What is the podcast all about? Or really in essence, it's about the future, the future sort of how you see the future. And we know that everything we do as human beings is governed by our relationship to the future. But what's really interesting in the world of psychology over the last 20 years or so, there's been a real shift in and what people are saying because for years that the classical world of psychology psychotherapy we we believed that everything we do is driven by our past. Now of course we're affected by our past our past shape has shaped who we are, but ultimately the reasoning that drives us is how we see the future and what we now know that probably more than ever, is most people's view of the future doesn't go very far. So I've said this so many times, but maybe you've heard it before, but maybe for the first time you're hearing this and it's really important when we looked at the seven eyes because there are seven eyes we're going to be looking at in this podcast. today. What are those eyes? Well, there's actually probably more than seven but we're talking about identity. We're talking about imagination. We're talking about investment. We're talking about impact. We're talking about intention. We're talking about ideas. We're talking about you influencing yourself, and we're talking about you ultimately being incredible. That's a lot of eyes, right. And the eyes in your head, the eyes that you can see out of so incredible because what you can do with your imagination to see a future that you want to go out and create. Because when we look at great forces of human beings What would you think is the greatest force? Surely one of them is our ability to come up with an idea which is another I come up with an idea and that's a brilliant idea. But what is an idea? An idea is something you obviously see something in your head you see some other brilliant idea. Let's have fish and chips tonight. So when you think of fish and chips, you're probably going to if you like fish and chips, you're going to have a feeling that's associated with that idea. Then you could go out and buy fish and chips and you can eat the thing that you thought of on a budget. It's incredible that human beings have that capacity. But what else do we have the capacity to do? What would could we imagined do it? And one of the things I love to have the conversation with people about is who could you imagine being who is that person? And if I had, if I could wave a magic wand and change the world. One thing I would definitely do is to change the education system and teach of the future. Imagine a class in school which you get a job you still teach geography. I think geography has a place you don't think Maths and English. I mean, I don't know for me school was a complete waste of time I left school with one qualification in history. But everything else I just found school really boring and mundane. But what I definitely had was an excitement and an enthusiasm. And I think everybody has that. Would you agree that everyone has the ability to be optimistic, everyone has the ability to be excited and enthusiastic. But it's how we manifest that and I think a lot of people are putting our ability to be infused and inspired and excited into things which really don't serve them long term. And that's why when I make bold statements, I think one of the boldest statements I will ever make is most people today are addicted to a life they don't even like and most people are living a future they don't anymore. That might not apply to you. But when you can wake people up and help people just look at life with a fresh pair of eyes. That's my goal. I just don't want to tell you what to do. It's none of my business. My business really is to give people different perspectives and then as best as I can for the ones who were willing to help them and support them. Do the greatest thing I think any human being will ever do, which is who they become. So here's the question. What will be the greatest thing you ever do? Nothing to do with what you've done. Maybe it's something you'll continue to do. But if we just stopped we just stopped for one moment, then what was the greatest thing I'm ever going to do? And maybe some of you think, well, the greatest thing I'll ever do is what who it is who I become. It's not what I have. I mean what you have is great, but what you're going to do with what you have, and these are really deep philosophical questions that I'm asking you and sometimes people don't want to stop. We created

our app stock one stock one, and we created it and originally we called it Start One Stop One. And we realized through conversations with our team that really you don't want to start anything before you actually start because if you start something and you haven't stopped, chances are you'll start and you'll you'll stop doing nothing that you started and then that feeling disappointed. And maybe you'll regret and I think that's often one of the things that biggest things which stops people from starting again because they regret the fact that they haven't done what they could have done. You know, we've all heard that saying the best time to plant a tree. Well, that was 20 years ago, right? So most people think well, it was 20 years ago so it's no point doing now what is the best time to plant the tree is is right now we know that. And for someone like myself who's dedicated his life to helping and finding answers and solutions to things. I've never been more inspired than I am right now. There's a few reasons for that one because we've been working on our app for so long and we're so happy with what we've created and providing a vehicle providing an environment providing producing a commitment device to help people make progress is they go out and chase or hunt or pursue the person that they would actually most like to be. Now I'm a big fan of personal development around. First, I did my second degree in sports psychology and I didn't learn very much. And when I left I was very disillusioned. And I was going on holiday and I said to a friend of mine Can you lend me a book? And he said yeah, read this. So he gave me this book. It was called over the top by Zig Ziglar absolutely loved it. I've never read anything like that before and it set a fire in my belly to to learn this stuff, that I was more obsessed with teaching it to other people than applying it to myself. It took me quite a long time to actually think what's the preaching, and start, you know, teaching yourself how to do what you need to do. I'm sure I'm not alone here. And then I came back from my holiday and I went to a bookshop and I said if you've got anything like this and they went yes this and that was Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins and I read lots of personal development books and I think personal development is great. But you know a lot of us have read it but not done anything about it. A lot of us have bought the book with the intention to start read the first chapter and stopped, you know, and it's a dangerous thing. I often when you stop when you stop because you could wear yourself down to think well what's the point to a part of your brain that goes, You know what, this is a story that you've created. This is who I am. This is my identity. And most people identify with who they think they are and they wonder why they keep going around in circles. And research shows that if you let people do their own devices, they actually do go around in circles, but the personal development movement, a lot of it actually came from a book. Well, a lot of people will say that you came from the Bible that a lot of what we've learned in personal development, those stories, they they're very they come from the Bible. It's not they're not reinventing the wheel. But ultimately, there's some great wisdom in the Bible. There's great wisdom in books, there's great wisdom everywhere. But what people probably know is one of the greatest books is thinking Grow Rich. That was written by Napoleon Hill, but it was he wasn't his idea. It was someone else's idea was Andrew Carnegie was the richest man in the world. And I'm going to play him just a couple of things here before we dive into this. The seven eyes, Earl it was a guy called Earl Nightingale and if it wasn't for Earl Nightingale, thinking Grow Rich probably never would have come about because behind every great person there's another great person who's inspired that person to do something. So I want you to have a listen to Earl Nightingale and listen to what he says about our future selves.

Experts. So you don't have to listen to me. I mean, there's so much wisdom out there in the world, but I feel so honored that I can actually share that with you. And I think the reason people don't do this is we're just not encouraged to do if there was a conspiracy in the world of worldwide conspiracy. I think part of the conspiracy would be who you are, is who you're always going to be. And there's nothing you can do about it. This is who you are. This is how you were made you say you're bought up and that's how you're always going to be because if people think about that they become very predictable. And they continue to act in certain ways. It's very easy to predict economies. Imagine if everyone woke up one day and realize half the stuff out that I've made. So I don't need to buy half of these things. I don't need to eat that. I don't need to think that I don't need to buy that. All of the sudden we'd have a massive change a shift in the world. And I think most people think that the way they are is that's who they are. And there's nothing they can do about it. But if we will just stop for one moment. Just stop and think about where we are in our life right now. And think about how fundamentally different we are to who we were the look back at your form itself. For me in my mind. Now I'm picturing myself with hair, you know, a young boy and I'm thinking if I could go back to my younger self, what would I say to myself? What advice would you give your former self your younger self? I give myself a big hug and say listen, there's nothing wrong with you. The problem is the world that you're trying to fit into. That's the problem. If you could learn to think greater than you feel and realize that you could become who I am. Your life is gonna be great. If you start to invest in becoming me. Then you know what, we're gonna have a whole lot of fun along the way. We're going to dominate. And I'm sure we can all imagine that because we carry our past. You know, my good friend Dale, who said to me, you heard this song. It's called the three of me. Today I had a dream. There was three of me it was the man I was the man I am and a man I want to be what do you want to be? I mean, literally, when you were younger, I said, What do you want to be when you grow up? I can't remember what I said. But children have this natural ability to pretend or to you know, imagine being someone but they just weren't encouraged to imagine being yourself in the future. Because the only thing that exists really is the future. When we talk about now I say well, now is the future right now. This is it. This is the future. But what about beyond this now? Because then there's another now in South Africa, they just say you know, just now but they don't actually mean now. They mean later. And I think when's the best time it is actually right now. Today look to the future in such a way and imagine that your future self as Earl Nightingale just said imagine your future self comes to you what's your future self gonna say to you? Well, I'd like to think that your future self would say something around the seven eyes. I know what my future self would say to me. My future self the first eye is identity. My future self would say to me, identify with me. Identify with me in the future. identify with this as who you are becoming because I am wiser than you are more confident in you I will focus than you. And by you practicing whatever you want. I'm going to tell you to practice every single day. If you commit to start at stopping certain behaviors and starting other behaviors and you do them over an extended period of time, you will become me. You see when we look at the word identity if you look it up in the dictionary it means basically your repeated beingness it's a consistent set of who you think you are to your values. It's your beliefs. And so many people just hold on to this whole concept. Can you create a new identity? Yes or not? Ultimately, it's up to you. That's the great thing about life, isn't it for most of us living in the world today we have a choice. But we know most people the choices they will make them be very predictable. That'd be very simple. The same as they were just easy energy saving. That's just keep moving forwards practicing who we were. But ultimately, how happy are you? How fulfilled Are you? Is there something left in the basement? If you've ever seen Rocky Balboa, that great line when he's talking to his cousin and he goes oh good Something moved into Bushman and his cousin pulling us what basement. You know, what have you got in you? That you still want to do something with what it is that you have? I'm so curious about that. I'm so curious.

So the first thing you've got to identify what I'm doing and I'm encourage you to do the same thing and we would love to help you do that. The first is seven eyes to real success is to identify with a future version of you that you want to go out and create is what Gandhi did Be the change that you want to see yet to reinvent himself. History is full of examples of people. We talk about them often on the future self podcast, but Matthew McConaughey when he was 15 years old being asked Who is your hero because I don't know that thought about it. And it's sort of person to week as I think about it sort of guy. The lady two weeks later, the person lady said, So who's your hero because I thought about it to me in 10 years. That's who I'm pursuing. And when you listen to Matthew McConaughey here, you'd see his Oscar winning speech and you hear him talk about this in 2013 or you hear any of his podcasts or you hear him speak. You know he's driven by something more than just who he is right now. So the first step is definitely identity. The second step, I believe is imagination is to you know, you identify with that person, but you use your imagination. And I've said this, there's a guy called Robert Brock who says for most people, it's the ease of remembering versus the difficulty of imagining it's so easy for us to to remember who we think we are asked me that's how I act versus the difficulty of imagining and imagining what how does that person think? I am so guided by my future self and I never was and a real fixed mindset in parts of my brain because I was just trying to defend who I was. Rather than opening up and saying, you know, this is who I'm committed to becoming. Who are you seriously committed to becoming? Because if you don't imagine who that person is why bother? And there's something known as the empathy gap. There's a very famous clinical psychologist called make J. And she talks about the empathy gap. And I believe more and more people genuinely hear this because it's it's such an important message. In fact, it's that important that I think we should actually hear it. What do you think? Some messages really, really, really need to be heard?

Unknown Speaker  17:28

future selves, some sort of failure, or imagination. Because research shows that our brains think about our future selves

Unknown Speaker  17:40

and how they think about strangers that we haven't met. Yet, research often find a way to develop in our future selves. We start to think more about what we can do now. Time to ourselves. Here is just to try to get to connecting with that person.

Pete Cohen  18:12

Why try to connect to your future self no connects to your future self. Every single day that we talk to ourselves all the time. Right now, as you're listening to this, you might even be really listening. Someone else might be talking to you. But there's also a voice in your head that's talking to you. It's called Your presence stuff, or maybe your past self. And I don't think that's where the power is. Your future self. Doesn't have a lawyer present and I'm the lawyer is coming from your future self and saying, Listen, you don't have to be who you are. You can be more you can become more, but it's waking up to where you are right now. So the first step is definitely identity. The second step is imagination. And the first step it won't surprise any of you it's war to invest in what's the greatest investment that you'll ever make. You know, people talk about investment in the stock market and now with the way our world is people are very genuinely concerned. I've been looking at my pension and see I've been investing into that for years and I'm seeing that it's rapidly going down. It's gone down probably about 100,000 pounds in the last few months. You know, there's not that much I can do about it. You know, I'm sure there are things I can do about it. But these are things are outside of myself, but the greatest investment I ever make is in the investment who I'm becoming my health, my well being just my relationships, I'm investing and we talked about 1% and all 1% is can you invest 1% of your day into three different areas of your life? Could you invest 14 minutes and 24 seconds every day into the improvement of your relationships? Could you spend time with the people that matter most to you today? Could you hold them could you hug them could you listen to them? Could you be intentional Could you be which is one of our next steps can you be intentional can you be indestructible as another i By the way, and that's not one of the seven can you invest 1% of your day of course we all can well with but one investments will be made today that really don't lead anywhere. In a world where everyone's wants your attention. Everyone is trying to start sell you something your attention has been sold to the highest bidder. I was talking yesterday about how the world is set up in such a moment, that such time where there's never been more parity of thought I'm right, you're wrong. And let's say you have an idea of something but you weren't sure about it because you were curious and he went and looked for some information and then for you know, you got to be fed more and more of that information to the point that you have a bias towards that. Because we're being influenced which is another high. So the first eye in the seven eyes is definitely identity if you can't identify with a future self that inspires you if you can't see if you don't have empathy for your future self like Mike Jones said, Why invest in that? And most people that's why most people invest into habits that don't serve them. Long term they serve them short term. So identify with the future stuff that you want to go out and create. Using your imagination to imagine who that person is, you know, one of the things we have with us not Stop One Start one app. We have a couple of meditations, one of those meditations is going to meet your future self every single day. So you'll be guided I believe by the most important person in the world, which is the person you are going to become that we have the choice right. The third is to invest start investing investing in your future self. So with meditating every day, be an investor and you're investing into your future self. Well, I don't know what is your future self set. Meditation for me is so powerful because it's when I start to take control of my body. Because one of the biggest challenges that we have is we don't feel like doing things so we don't do them. And that's why meditation that's why cold showers and exercise for many of the things that we don't feel like doing they many of them have benefits to health benefits. But for me, it's more than that. It's about me exercising the self control over my body. Because if I don't feel like doing something, sometimes I won't do it. But if we don't know how to think greater than we feel, then we're in trouble. So the third is to invest can you invest 1% 1% of your day, 14 minutes and 24 seconds.

The fourth is to do things intentionally. I love the word intention. I love the word intend. I just I just think they're wonderful words you know our coaching company, my 365 is about my intentions. Now delivered get your mind right, by living intentionally. Because we are intentional beings. We are goal orientated beings. Everything we do as human beings is determined by goals and dreams something in front of us if you went to a football match, and you're watching it and then all of a sudden you realize that there's something missing there are no goals. How long would you watch the game for it? And that's the point it is just kicking the ball around, where are we going? What are we doing? So to live intentionally to do what you say you're going to do? Is there so much power in that and there's so much disempowerment when we say we're going to do things and we don't do them, that's when we start to live intentionally. And again with Stop One Start One. What we've created is the ability for you for you to get hooked, for you to become almost addicted to doing what you say you're going to do. So you make progress. Please let me ask you a question. Is there any better feeling than the feeling of advancement? Is there any better feeling of creating some sort of streak in your behavior? You know, I can't give you the feeling of exercising every single day for 3040 5060 days. But how many of you know that feeling? To the point where it's not like I'm exercising, I'm an exerciser? It's not like what I'm eating healthy. No, I'm a healthy eater. This is who I am. This is what I have created. The fifth step is this is impact. You just focus on I'm impacted, how am I impact that's when you review. You know, every day, the way I look at it it's not for everyone. I understand this way of thinking isn't for everybody, but maybe it's for you. And if you're still listening, it probably is for you. To be able to every day what went well what needs work, what am I going to do better? Where am I impacting where am I making gains? Where am I making marginal gains? And again, this is why we have revolutionized personal development with Stop One Stop One because when you slip you see it, you'll see there's a journal and if life is worth living, it has to be worth recording that you can record your journal every single day and see the progress that you're making. Plus we've also created that you can actually write a letter to your future self. We used to do this years ago in the 90s. I used to do this I used to run my weight loss classes and weight loss events. And we used to get people to write a letter from their future self and we take the letter we'd ask them where we wanted them to post it to people. It was magical. I saw people years later. It wasn't always magical for everybody. But for a lot of people. They became the person they imagined I showed this live on television, but somehow I did this thing where they see your future self. I can remember this right now we were in a place called Bear Island in Devon. And this was live on television. I said to this woman I kind of put her into a bit of a trance. I said close your eyes. Imagine you can see your front door on the other side of the front door is you in the future. It's you slimmer, fitter, healthier. I said imagine that you can see yourself on the other side of the door and see what you looked like. When I said imagine that he was turning around. And then I said imagine opening the door and looking at that view the complexion in your face your skin tone. Imagine that you are standing you can see the back of you and I'm going to count you down from five to one I want to get to one, you're going to step into that person and I could see her just being pumped up you know I like 54321 and she stepped in and literally she stepped in and then she just opened her eyes up Whoa, what's just happened here. And that was brilliant because it was a great TV moment. Probably 2 million people watching this woman and she started crying at the realization of oh my god, I could actually become this person. And I didn't really realize what was going on at the time and the significance of this because I hadn't woken up enough to realize I spent my life up until that point listening to people when I asked him what they want. They were telling me what they didn't want. I didn't know that at the time. And you know what? I saw that lady? I don't know, six, seven years later, she actually called me up actually. And she said Pete, I have to tell you something.

What we imagined on that day on television, they actually came through. I was in St Lucia on holiday we've been saving up for two years. For this holiday. And what I saw in my mind, I had this massive epiphany of I am that person. And that was incredible. And it woke me up to the fact that you know I am the people's coach and yes, I have worked with weld in the Olympic champions. You know and when you work with someone who's going to compete at the highest level, you understand that as I now even know now more than I knew then that if they don't know the person that they need to be because who they are is not who they need to be they need to become someone else. They need to stop doing things. They need to start doing things over and over and over. Again to they become the person that wins the medal. And if they don't commit to being someone different to who they are, then they'll probably just be who they were. And they wonder why they don't progress. So it's the fifth is about impact. The sixth is just influencing your future self influencing the greatest what's the greatest influence that you'll ever have? You know, I'm the greatest influence. I don't think it's the influence I'm going to have on you. I'd like to influence you but I'd like to influence you to be influenced enough to coach yourself to move your life forwards. So you realize that everything you have is everything you need. You're not coming from a place that there's something wrong with me. No, this is this is this is where we're at guys. It's too easy to think there's something wrong with me. I'm not right I should have done this. I should have done that. That's not influence. What if it was it's a bad influence? And the seven is to be incredible. be incredible. I think the steps to being incredible is to identify with a future self that you want to be is to imagine who that person is to invest in that future yourself. To have impact impact your day, every day by just thinking about what do I need to do today to have the greatest impact, which is often about routines, you know how you start your day, finish your day, reviewing the day that's why journaling I think is so important and then have influence over that person. And influence often is being influenced by other people and that's again something that we've created and what we've done an environment that supports your growth. And then to be in this is how the this is how to be incredible and I'd love to help you go from where you are to where you want to be and start to know where that person is. What do you reckon? What's the greatest thing you'll ever do? I have no idea. But you know what? I'd love to absolutely be a part of that. So you never stop. And you don't stop till you get enough. But you never get enough. You never get enough of just progressing, of just winning, winning every day. Just by feeling that you're you're doing what makes you feel good. Now, of course MJ isn't here anymore. I'm talking Michael Jackson. So we could say don't stop but first of all, maybe we should stop just stop and look at what we're doing. And it made me think is there another way

so what's your biggest takeaway? And for those of you that listen to our podcast all over the world, contact us let us know. It's like having written books. You know, I've written 20 books published in multiple languages read by hundreds of 1000s Millions of people. And it's not very often I meet people that read the books, but I'd love that feedback. What impact is this add on you? What impact does the future self podcast have on you?

I want to thank you for listening. I genuinely appreciate you the seven eyes. What are those eyes? The eyes in your head identify the imagination. Investment impact, be intentional and have influence over yourself. Surround yourself with like minded people. And guess what? be incredible and guess what? We will see you next time. Much love to you all. Stay incredible.