20 Dec, 2022

Pete Cohen  0:00

Happy, beautiful, amazing day. Welcome to the Future Self Podcast. today's podcast is called Gratitude 3.0. I'll see you after the theme tune.

Pete Cohen  0:28

Greetings. Happy beautiful day. Thank you so much for joining me for the podcast, we are talking all things Gratitude. Now, in the six years of doing the Future Self Podcast, I know we've done a few on the subject of gratitude. But for me, it's not really about a subject, oh, I've done that. I've like a book I've read. I know that. Because to know, and to not do is to not know. And it was Stephen Covey that said that I'm sure I've quoted that before, you know, it's not enough to know. And I think there's so many people in the world who either don't know, or know, but don't do or don't know how to do. Maybe they're doing things in a way that they used to do, and they don't work anymore, and they keep doing them. It's really fascinating. And this whole subject of gratitude, I think, is one of the most fascinating fields, the most fascinating conversations that any human being can have about what we're grateful for. And I really do appreciate you showing up and listening to the podcast, because this podcast is designed to do one thing is designed to inspire people to go from where they are to where they want to be. And to be someone who feels gratitude. Well, that could be a life's work, but it is this is one of the things I want to delve into today that the fact that it's it's a practice. And if practiced, well, what impact could it have on your life? Well, it's one of those things, I suppose you don't know. Until you know, you don't know until you've practiced it. And I've always known about this subject because I'm so I'm one of those people who works in the field of personal development. I've written 20 books all about sowing alignment. One of our books is called sort your life out. One of the books is called Life DIY, one of the books is called habit busting fear busting books, published in multiple languages, and I've never ever stopped learning, I've never stopped being curious every single day, I just love to learn. I think learning is just an inevitable inevitable, I think it's absolutely essential. That's the word I'm looking for, to keep learning to be curious, because those senses those parts of our there's parts of our brain that I think absolutely love, to learn to understand. And those parts of our brains often get shut off, as we get a little bit older, we do not agree that we kind of forget how to be excited, we forget how to be thankful for what we have, we forget to have wonder of the possibilities that exist for us. So when we look at gratitude, gratitude, 1.0 For me, I suppose is just becoming aware, I think, if you become aware, you've got a chance to do something different. But I don't often think that's enough. I think if you become aware, it's the first step 1.0. But to not then practice gratitude, and see, it's something that we have to call almost stop every day. And count our blessings count our lucky stars until it becomes a just natural for us. But even for people I would imagine who are naturally grateful, they still have to stop themselves, be in the present moment and think about the things they're grateful for. But 3.0 This is where I really want to delve into it. Because I think I'm a novice. I'm a total novice at this, this this point. I don't think I'm a novice in being grateful for what I have in my life right now. But 3.0 is grateful for your future. So things that haven't happened yet. But they're things that you want to have happen. So when we look at what gratitude actually is, what does it mean? Well, it means being thankful. That's what it means. It means being thankful. It means appreciating and I absolutely love the word appreciation. It's one of my favorite words. What is appreciation mean? Well, that also means being thankful. But it also means something that is increasing in value.

Pete Cohen  4:50

So take a moment to think about that. appreciation is something that increases in value. So if you appreciate what you have more and more Can you increase the value of it? That's where the magic for me really starts to happen. I was reading a quote by Jesus, right. So the even Jesus said, Pray as if it's already been done. You know, so people have spoken about this for a very, very long time. But the science around this is now really caught up. So you know, for years, we used to look at the wisdom, the ancient wisdom of the Greeks of people like Buddha, or Muhammad and Moses and Jesus, and a philosophy. And then we listened to psychiatry and psychology, and more and more of that now is being based on science. And we we're starting to see what happens in the brain, when we experience certain emotions. And it's really fascinating. It's just, it's, it's a big leap. It's a big leap, I think, to go from First off, it's a big leap to think, right, you know, what I'm becoming aware of the power of gratitude. I think that's a big leap for most people, just to realize this could be an antidote to social comparison to fear to greed, to envy, to stress, to a feeling a lack of feeling not good enough. I actually think that that's a big leap for people to go really, for me to feel practice feeling grateful. And then to experience gratitude in my body and mind, could be a way for me to rid myself of the the ills of of envy and greed and stress. And is it? Well, it's a big challenge for people to even consider that if they spend most of their time in a state of stress. I was reading an article the other day that was proposing that, you know, most people in the Western world spend 70% of their time in stress. So when you spend your time in, suppress, suppress stress, what you see is certain parts of the brain start to shut down. And you start thinking the opposite to possibility and possibility and optimism and hope. It's very hard to feel stress and happy at the same time, it's very hard to feel love and fear at the same time. So it's a big leap, to actually be open to the possibilities that you if you became more grateful that your life would change. I think that's a big leap. It's an even bigger leap for people then to practice it, to practice it every day. That's another big leap, right? But imagine, you know, seeing those stones in a big pond, and you have to take a leap to get to the next one, you know what you could fall in. But you take that leap, you don't want to go back because you've gone that far forwards. And that to me, as you take the leap to become aware, you take the second leap to practice and it becomes a virtue, it becomes something that you do, it's an absolute non negotiable. And that's what we see with people who keep journals, you know, this whole, but not just going through the motions. This is this is the next step. In this in gratitude, 2.0 it's not just practicing is feeling it is actually taking a moment, when I think of all of the people that listen to our podcast all over the world, we I get an email every day, show me how show me how our podcast is performed performing. And I know that people are listening to it all over the world. You know, I know that people are listening to it in Cyprus, I know they're listening to it. In Australia, I know their lives all over the world. And I'm so grateful for every single one of those people giving me their time giving me their attention, because that's a really valuable thing.

Pete Cohen  8:21

But I don't just want to think about it, to theorize it, I want my to teach my body, this is the key. This is part of the key. It's to teach my body how to feel grateful. And what we now know, this is such an interesting area of neuroscience is that the brain can think right, so the brain comes up with thoughts, it creates an image those those thoughts creates emotions, and those emotions create feelings. So where do we feel those feelings? Because if you really want to take this to a whole new level, you have to teach your body to feel grateful. It's very well to think and just write it down. But you want to feel it because the way I see it, and this is something I learned from Dr. Joe Dispenza is that the body really is the unconscious mind. Now what do I mean by this, just just think about this for a moment, once upon a time who was the master review, or you could say your parents or whoever. But ultimately, once upon a time, when you were so small that you couldn't walk you would depend on everyone else around you. You had this brain that was just basically open to everything, didn't know right didn't know wrong, but the brain wanted to wanted things once it started to wake up and different brainwaves started to be produced. It started to see it started to want it wanted to explore they wanted to move but it couldn't move. So your brain had to teach your body how to move for this sounds like a science lesson, doesn't it? But your brain says to your body we're going to move. So the brain watches and then slowly teaches the body and then the body starts to see and the body starts to do, but it hurts the body and the body isn't in charge because the mind keeps going well. We're gonna keep going we're gonna get out because we're going over there, because there's something over there that I like the look of, it could have been, I don't know, it could have been a nipple, it could have been some food, it could have been anything that you wanted, that you thought I'm gonna get it. I think that desire and that optimism is in everybody. But ultimately, your mind was in control, then what's happened to most people around the world is their mind isn't in control anymore. Their body their unconscious mind is in control. Now, what do I mean by this simply mean that you could have a thought, and that thought could produce a feeling. And that feeling will convince you not to do the thing? Or to do the thing that isn't in your best interest? Isn't that fascinating? You know, if you think I really don't feel like exercising, that's a thought, right? Was that thought going to produce chemicals? Those chemicals produced feelings? Where do you feel those feelings, your body doesn't feel like it so it convinces your mind that you were right, then you have the same thought, and it becomes in you're not in control anymore. I say you this may be doesn't apply to everybody. But from my experience of 32 years of working with people, I can tell you, a lot of people are stuck. Because they haven't learned how to think greater than they feel. How to think greater than they feel if you if you don't learn how to think greater than you'll feel you'll be always be a victim of, well, I just don't feel like how many people do you think in the world right now? Who just simply don't feel like doing something? And simply because they don't feel like doing something? Chances are they're not going to do they don't feel like exercising? Why does someone start exercising? Well, in many cases, they start because they feel they have to, you know, they're overweight, they see a picture of themselves, that doctor tells them you're diabetic. So it's, they're being pushed away from something, they don't enjoy it. And then invariably, we go back to the default default future. And this is where if we could wake up the first step, become aware, definitely the second step is to practice but practice and feel. So you know, if you took time to really, it was my brother's birthday yesterday, my brother who is in Austria at the moment, I really took time to speak to him. But I also spent time to think about how grateful I am for him, who he is what he's done, what we've been through together, the death of my dad, the death of my mum, the challenges I've had with my wife, this, he's the amount of times that he has been there for me I, one of the most consistent people I've ever met.

Pete Cohen  12:28

But I'm actually the most consistent person I've ever met. And it's a challenge to be consistent. It's a challenge to be grateful in a world that basically the easiest thing to do in this world right now, I'd say is to compare yourself to others, to be greedy, to be envious, to feel stressed, to feel that you're not enough, you don't have enough to feel not good enough, I think that's the easiest thing to do. It's the easiest conditioning, it's just it's an almost become a natural tendency. So it's a big leap, a big leap to get out of your cocoon of self absorption, and into a world of possibility. Right, and then to have the discipline to base if you want to combat and this is what I think if you want to combat fear, envy, greed, stress, one of the best ways to combat it, is through gratitude. And when I first started getting involved in this field, one of the best people to look at and research is a guy called Robert Emmons who's just written a book, he's written a couple of books, he's brilliant. And it's so it's common sense. It's such a common sense that when you feel grateful, you increase feelings of energy, alertness, enthusiasm, you sleep better, you exercise longer, you live longer, you increase your feelings of self worth, self confidence, your cardiac health improve. But you know, if it was a pill, I think it has to be taken every day, you know, to the point where you start looking for what you're grateful for. But most people aren't looking for what they're great grateful for. They're just not. And most people have been brought up to think that happiness is a future destination. It's not you can't be happy now. So this is science. This is where we start getting into gratitude. 3.0. Because, for me, to understand what gratitude is, the emotional signature of gratitude is thankful. So if you think about what you're grateful for, it's for something that's happened or something that you have. Wouldn't you agree? I mean, it's so obvious when it's so obvious. See, the more you understand what you're doing, the easier it becomes. me say this, again, the emotional signature of gratitude is you're thankful for something that you currently have or you're thankful for something that has happened and experience a person. You know, when we when we released one of our gratitude method, I mean, I've got meditations on YouTube that have had millions of views. I've got affirmation videos that have had two and a half million, 3 million views. Because people like listening to this stuff. You know, and then there are some people that actually do the stuff. Because they know it changes their epigenetics it changes the way their genes express themselves. It changes your environment in your body. But it's a choice. It's such an amazing choice to make. And I know it's not always the easiest choice to make. We got to teach our body, our bodies chemically, this is the key. Okay, you ready? Gratitude. 3.0 is using the emotional signature of gratitude. Because it's the ultimate state of receiving when you're feeling grateful you're receiving something. But what I'd like to challenge everybody to do is to be grateful for something they want to have happen in the future.

Pete Cohen  15:56

I mean, how many of you have heard you know, the brain doesn't know the difference between an experience that you've had and an experience that you've made up? Think about it. Think of the last holiday that you went on?

Pete Cohen  16:13

How was it? What do you remember seeing what do you remember hearing? What do you remember feeling? I remember coming across this in studying psychology, and then neuro linguistic programming. And I thought, wow, yeah. Okay, I can remember my holiday. And then the teacher said, Well, think of a holiday, you've never been on holiday that you would like to go on. And picture that. And imagine looking out to see and you can feel the sound in your feet and the the gentle water, just massaging your feet. And you can feel the sun beating down on your face. And you can hear a seagull. And all of a sudden, they're craps on you. That's horrendous. This long stinks as well. That your brain doesn't know the difference between something that's real and something that's not. And this is where we can start to take take control of our mind. Because our mind, I think the mind is a real trickster, we have to be careful it can it can you put it somewhere, it can do a great job, it will go somewhere, if you don't put it somewhere, where does it go? It often goes into the past. It often goes back into your your biology of who you think you are. And that's what most people do every day, they just wake up and recreate what they did yesterday, who am I Oh, I'm the person who picks up their phone and start scrolling and starts looking for something to remind myself of who I think I am. Rather than waking up to being grateful for something that hasn't happened yet, in one dimension, but it's happened in another dimension, the dimension of thought. And if you could start to see your thoughts as things, you know, I think this it's a thought, it's a real thing. Because if you have a thought you can have a feeling. This is such a fascinating area to just be open to because if you can think of a holiday that you've been on, and then you could imagine a holiday that you haven't been on? What would it take for you to convince yourself that that holiday they haven't been on his real? Well, the more you thought about it? What would happen? The more you thought about it, the more a part of you will go well that's real.

Pete Cohen  18:27

And I think the greatest ability that all of us have is our abilities to create, Would you not agree that we could come up with an idea, we can condition ourselves rather than living in the past, because that's what happens. A lot of people live in the past and that predicts their future. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. But I just haven't found too many people that actually are happy and fulfilled and are in the mode of working towards something. I mean, it all starts with being present. But if you read this the other day, if you look inside the jar, you see the label, we want to get out of the jar, and get out of being addicted to the past being get out of being addicted, that addicted to the hormones of stress, which is something I've been hugely addicted to in my past. And sometimes I noticed those patterns. That how can we make a predictable future? How can we get beyond our past you know, where you place your focus is where your energy goes. And if you really want to elevate your emotions. There is an alternative way. And that to me is gratitude. 3.0. You know, there's a book called Love 2.0 which is about those moments of love, even if it's someone you don't know particularly well when you smile at someone you open a door for someone that love doesn't have to be something that's just between you and people really close to you You can be loved, you can have the coherence of your heart and brain. I remember really getting disillusioned with psychology when I was working in that field and talking to people about heart coherence, coherence, cohesion, and heart rate variability. And people were saying, Well, what's that, that doesn't really fit into our model of the world. And I was around a lot of people that knew a lot of stuff. But they weren't actually doing that much with what they knew. To know and not do is to not know. And of course, this requires effort, this requires energy. But the more you do it, the better you become at it. And I'm just proposing that every single one of us has an opportunity to create a fantastic future, every single one of us has an opportunity right now, to see ourselves in the future. What's the greatest thing that you will ever create? What will be your greatest ever achievement? Personally, my greatest achievement will be the person that I become. And I've really got to know that person. And I'm hugely grateful to that person. That person talks to me all the time. I just wasn't listening. I was listening to the story, I was telling myself about who I thought I was. And I kept repeating the same habits, the same problems. It was only when I shifted, I took the leap. And now I see the future that my future self has created, my future self is wiser than me, my future self is more courageous than me. You're gonna meet your future self. And I think unless more people start waking up to this new science of gratitude, the more people will continue to lead default futures. What's a default future? It's knowing deep down, you're living a future that you don't want. It's actually knowing it. The knowing the scene, the AI that is looking at you, the observer. When I make that bold statement, that most people today are living a future. They don't want some people. So what do you mean? Well, in America, in Kelly McGonigal, his book, The Joy of movement, she cites that 97.3% of Americans are unhealthy by for basic measures. And of course, it's not just America, it's just easy to give into the temptation of now to continue to be who you think you are, and not invest in the person that you could become. The best way to invest in the person that you want to become is to know that person, and in Do what makes you become alive in the moment that is an investment into your future.

Pete Cohen  23:09

It's amazing when you see people that get their head around this, the pressure that they take off themselves, is it just get lost into doing what they need to do? There's no lack. Or if there is, it doesn't last very long. There's no I'm not enough. It's just putting the energy into something of transformation. Look, 20 years ago, habit busting came out, which I wrote in 22,000. It took me two years to write in 2001 came out in 2003. It was published in multiple languages around the book around the world, sorry, when we went and sat with the publishers to sign up a big five book deal. I had Random House and HarperCollins knocking on my door, the two biggest publishing houses. There were 16 of the 16 executives at Random House, and we were sitting around a table with my agent, and my coach who was alive at the time. And my coach was a very wise man. At the end of the meeting, he had said nothing. And basically, at the end, I turned to him and said, Rafael, do you want to say something? He goes, Do you want me to speak as it? Yeah, yes, please. He said, Who here has ever been in love? And most people put up their hand. He said, Great. Who here ever received a love letter? Remember, this was a long time ago. People did write letters back then. And most of them put their hand up. And he said, How many of you read the letter and you read it over and over and over again? And the more you read it, the more you felt what the person felt, who wrote the book? And some of them said, yeah, he goes, that's the book that we want to write. We want to write a book that touches the hearts and the minds of the people that read it. So some people they weren't resonate with it. They weren't they weren't read much of it, but some people they won't put that book down. They weren't Put it down because the book is talking to them. We ended up not going with them, they offered us a five book deal for 50 grand, which was fantastic. But considered there, they'd offered us a one book deal for 25,000. My coach, my agent just basically said, I'm not sure you should go with that deal. But my age, my coach said, I don't think you should go with the deal. Because energetically, they don't get where you're coming from. They want to make money from you. And you you want, it's not about money for you. He knew me so well. It's about putting great work into the world that is valuable, and appreciated. Now, what's this got to do with you? I don't know what you take from that story. But there's a book being written in your life right now today, by listening to this, what you do on the back of this, that's going to be interesting, whether anything changes or everything just be the same. You can listen to the podcast episode, that, that we that we have, which is this, there's two of them, there's two meditations that we have. One of them is where you go and meet your heroes called Meet your hero training. Or you can listen to the one where it's really about Michelangelo meeting, Michelangelo and him showing you the statue of you as you go and carve out the person that you want to be. So everything we do, is really about you. Everything that we do is designed to inspire you to look at life differently. Because we know people don't change right when we tell them what to do. We know that people change when they're when their perspective tech changes. So in summary, gratitude 3.0 really for me is about your ability to build a relationship to a future is your ability to see the things that you want to have in the future. But I think what's far more powerful than that, is actually knowing the person that you're going to be in the future, and connecting to that person every single day. It's the greatest work of your life. So gratitude, 1.0 gratitude. 1.0 is the awareness first, the awareness of the power of being grateful. That's it, just being aware. The second step is to actually practice it. But practice it with emotion. So your body feels what you're thinking. You feel it in every cell of your body. To know and to not do is to not no gratitude. 3.0 is being grateful for you in the future. And the things that you want to bring into the world. It's a very simple thing to say. It's not always the easiest thing to do. So if you want to check out the podcast episode, which is called Meet your hero meditation, you feel wonderful, you can listen to this while you do it, the more you because in this, I'm taking you on a journey towards that person. A person walks towards you. And they wavy.

Pete Cohen  28:01

As you use your imagination, which is the greatest thing, right? The ease of remembering who you think you are, the ease of remembering this is how you react in certain situation versus the challenge or the difficulty in imagining. I really want to thank you for listening to the podcast. We really, really, really appreciate every single one of you. Please subscribe to the podcast, share it with the rest of the world if you want to. But for now, this was Gratitude 3.0 Happy, happy, grateful day.