27 Sep, 2022

Pete Cohen  0:00

Happy beautiful, amazing day. It is the Future Self podcast. Today's podcast is called How to Stop Lying to Your Future Self. I'll see you after the theme tune.

Hey, happy beautiful day. Thank you so much for joining me for the podcast. Today we're talking about How to Stop Lying to Your Future Self. Everything that we do with this podcast is about one thing really it's about our relationship to the future. The future to me is kind of where it's at. Now that might seem strange to some people because they'd say well no, here is where it at. Here is where it doesn't sound like particularly good English. Here is where it is at I would say what we do today is creating the future. So the future is now right now. And it's really amazing when you delve into people's relationship to the future. How do you see it? And I don't know if any of you have ever been in a situation where you've wanted someone to tell you about the future. I wonder how much money the psychic world is worth when you go and sit with someone and whether they do a card reading with you or they look in a crystal ball to help you see the future or someone to tell you the future. I know I've done it before. I remember many many years ago when I worked in a gym, one of one of the members who actually became an instructor. He was a really good friend of mine. And he told me about his mum, this old Jamaican lady who was psychic that she could look at you and tell you about what was going to happen. And I was like, Okay, I was intrigued because I'm I am very intrigued. If someone is good at something I tried to put the part of my brain out of the way that you know that tells me No no, that doesn't work that stupid. You know, why wouldn't I believe someone who would say that? Why not just be open minded? So I went round one day with Tony to see his mom and I sat down and his mom just kind of looked at me and and literally within the first few minutes, she said to me, what are you doing in the relationship that you're in? I said, What do you mean? She goes well, you know, deep down it's not working. And you know you're not helping yourself or helping her. She didn't tell me to leave or anything but she basically told me what I already knew anyway, but I was afraid to admit it. I was kind of lying to myself. And I think I had been for some time. You know, I had that kind of feeling inside that this wasn't right for me. And right for her and a few weeks later, I decided now was the time and I told my girlfriend at the time and it was devastating. We'd been together for a few years but we split up. And I don't know if anyone's ever split up with someone and for some strange reason you ended up going back to that person. And I did and we went back together again and we were together for a few years again. It was never right. And guess why did? Tony said to me, I'm going to have to send my mum tomorrow. Do you want to come over to come over and see my mom again? And I was like, okay, so I went and I promise you she didn't remember me. She saw so many people. I literally sat down and she looked at me and she said something like you you have this pattern of not letting go of things that don't serve you and you're in a relationship, aren't you? And she basically just read to me what she read from me, or what maybe I was giving out I don't know exactly what she was doing it to me it's not that important is that when someone does magic, I don't particularly care about what they're doing behind the scenes. You know, that doesn't bother me, but for some people they love to know. I just heard something that really resonated with me and I believe she was right. And I That's why often we need help not necessarily psychics, but when you've been doing the work that I've been doing for as long as I have been doing it which is a long time of literally sitting down in front of people professionally from the age of about 19 looking at someone in the eyes and asking them what do you want in an M 52? Very soon. So I've been doing this a long time of literally looking at people and asking them a question and being curious and when you've been doing the type of work that I've that I've been doing for as long as I've been doing it and you've been helped and supported by so many people along the way. The coaches I've had you see patterns in people, you just see patterns. And I become I think a lot more instinctive I kind of am able to see see the patterns in people. And one of the biggest pattern I see in people is people lying to themselves. Now it depends what you categorize as lying. I just think maybe not being truthful to themselves.

Now, the private victory, I believe the private victories they precede the public victories you know to be able to go inside and observe the experience of being you. It's the guys who started Alcoholics Anonymous said Everything starts with the truth. Well, what is the truth? What is your personal truth? Have you ever lied? I have many times in my life. So I could say it was a white lie. But many, many times I told myself how many times in your life if you said you were going to do something and you didn't do it. How many times now you say is that lying to yourself? I know it's breaking a promise. It's not being truthful to yourself. Now, of course, the easiest thing to do with any of this is to name shame and blame yourself about it, but I don't think that's the answer. I also think that's a form of kind of lying to yourself if you think that's the answer, and maybe it is the answer. Maybe if you shame, blame and complain enough that maybe you'll wake up to the fact that you don't need to do that anymore. Because what I want to talk about is is is integrity. This is such a I love that word. For me integrity. What does that really mean? It means being truthful with your word. Being honest with yourself. You can't lie to your subconscious, your subconscious remember so think about this for a moment. How many times in your life. Have you said you were going to do something right? How many times? This is why with you know, the book, The Four Agreements, one of the agreements is to be I think it's the first one right? It's to be truthful with your word, to be honest with your word to be integral with your word. So let's just take a moment and think about how many times in our life have we said that we were going to do something? Right? We said we were going to read a book write a book. We said we were going to do a call sign up to a course. We said we were going to exercise we didn't do it. We said we were going to do this said we're going to do something with someone else. We didn't do it. How many times is it possible that there's a part of your brain that remembers every single time that you've done it? Now, let me ask you again, this is just out of curiosity. I don't know the answer to this. But how many of those things that you said you were going to do? The reason you were going to do them was it was an investment in your future self. So how many times you said you were going to do a you know, read a book you bought the book, man, you just got sidetracked how many times you said I'm going to watch this I'm going to stop all distractions or I'm going to go to the gym I'm going to meditate. And for some reason, you did it for a bit and this is where it's so important. If you can get your head around this. This is where it starts for me to get really fascinating to to know that okay, first off, you're not alone, right? You're not the only one. But basically the only reason you do these things is because they are investments in your future. Right. If you're exercising because you want a big chest, fantastic, but ultimately, if you're exercising because you know the value of it, the importance of it, and I can tell you this morning, I did not feel like getting up at four o'clock this morning. I really didn't it could have been so easy to stay in bed. Yesterday was exhausting. I mean literally, it was a relentless in terms of what I'm doing at the moment in terms of treatment for my wife, the brain tumor and literally conversation after conversation after conversation obstacles. But you know what? That's not stopping me. You know? Nothing's gonna stop me because just because of who I am and I'm no way that perfect and I'm no way the finished article. But did I feel like getting up this morning? No, of course it didn't. But I feel like coming down and doing my what my principles are. My principles are very important to me. And again, we need to discuss this if we want to stop lying to ourselves. We really need to start thinking about the private victories that need to happen. For the public victories before we show the world maybe more of who we are and what we have what we bring to the table. We more should show about the victories that we have within if you want external success. You've got to start with going internally, putting first things first. You know, because there's a guy called I was reading something I called Bill Walsh. He said that winners act like winners before they become a winner. And what does that mean? It's learning to recognize that the greatest thing you'll probably ever do is invest in your future. And do what you say you're going to do. I mean, is that not the highest form of integrity? To be truthful because if you don't have if you don't do this, right this is what will happen if you're not aligned.

You know, you control you can control your behavior, but principles will govern your actions. So it's very easy to start something with good intentions, right? We know that how many of us have started something right? We had the intention to do it. But after a while, we gave up. Why did we give up? Now again, there could be many reasons for that. But ultimately, I would say one of the reasons we gave up is we we cut the connection to our future self. We just cut it off. What is what will be we say this a lot on the podcast what will be your greatest ever achievement in your life, not what has been what will be what is the greatest relationship you're ever gonna think the greatest thing you're gonna do in your life is what you're going to do. It's not done yet. Maybe you've been working on it, but there's something the greatest thing you'll ever do is who you become. That's how I look at most people. I might be wrong, but if anyone is interested in that, yeah, I like that. I like the way I like the way you move. You know what I really like the way what you're saying in terms of my relationship to my future self and who I become, because I reckon I'm one of the best people you'll ever meet in this world. That will help you identify who you want to become, and then help and support you with the clarity and vision that keeps that alive. Because it's like it's like your metabolism. But if you stop eating your metabolism completely slows down. If you eat too much. Your metabolism just doesn't work properly. The metabolism is something that has to be stoked. It has to be stoked regularly. Some different schools of thoughts about this Yes, of course we can go for long periods of time without eating. But ultimately, the metabolism for most people most of the time it needs to be kept working needs to be kept alive. Right. If you didn't put anything on the fire, the fire would go out if you put too much on the fire, the fire would go out. What about the fire within you? How do we keep that going? Well, ultimately that's up to you. But for me, it's about building a relationship, a very strong relationship to our future self. And I think that your future self once you learn how to build a strong compelling relationship to it, it's talking to you it's just a question of maybe whether you're listening, you might call it your higher self or your genius, whatever you want to call it. To break free from the shackles of the past and realize that now is the time. Now is the time for what that's that's the question I would really love you to think about is now the time what difference would it make if you stopped lying to yourself? Because again, this is where things start to get for me really, really interesting. When we talk about what we want and the getting of what we want. You might call that success, but what success is for you might be completely different to somebody else. So I'm going to ask you to question what is being successful. What does that mean to you? For me, success is being integral with my word. It's doing what I say I'm going to do. Because if I don't do what I say I'm going to do then I'm not in alignment. And if I'm not in alignment, I'm not going to sustain anything. Basically, you're at odds with yourself and I think many of us are at odds with ourselves too much of the time. If you want to orientate your life towards a vision, and values and principles, then I think it's just time to wake up like never before and realize you don't have to be who you are being right now. You can be someone completely different. It's not the hardest thing I really don't think the hardest thing to do is to imagine a better future. But ultimately, it's to believe and this is the key thing of this whole podcast and he said it's again, it's not hard to imagine a better future. We can all do that. Imagine right now. being fitter and healthier, having more energy, or if you want Don't imagine right now being fitter. And healthier because sometimes when you when you delete in the mind, don't you do. Don't think of a pink elephant right now. Don't imagine yourself with a greater confidence standing up in front of people and inspiring them with your words. Don't imagine any of that stuff don't imagine your life being anything better than what it is right now. It's it's not the hardest thing to imagine a better future, but rather to believe that you deserve it. Isn't that fascinating? And if a person is out of integrity, they're going to try to grow

maybe one area of their life and then things get out of balance. I know I've done that in my past of solely focused for me it was work first, health second relationships third, but work was something I was obsessed about. And yeah, even with passion there's there's an obsessive passion which is unhealthy, where you overly compensate in something rather than the other type of passion which is called harmonious passion. When literally you just love what you do it, everything, everything that you do with your passion, it actually enhances the other areas of your life. And that's why with what we do in the work that we do and Stop One Start One which is our global challenge. We're encouraging people to look at the three life domains, your health and energy, your relationships, your wealth, your work, and to help you be integral with how you see those things in the future. And of course that's a challenge. I mean, for my wife right now, to see a future beyond the tyranny of where she is. That's really a real challenge. Now, most of you probably aren't in that position. But regardless of the position, what can you do with what you have? Is not today the day where we start to program ourselves. By doing what we say we're going to do is to build a strong and powerful and compelling relationship to our future selves. Let me say this again. It's not the hardest thing to imagine a better future but rather to believe that you deserve it. So how do you believe that you deserve a better future? Isn't that a fascinating question? Do you not think that that is an absolutely who thinks I would love to know from the people that listen to our podcast all over the world because we literally have every day. We have the statistics coming in from charter ball. I saw you were in the top 200 In the UK, and we're like, number 31 In countries like numbers in binning, I saw like 250 in China, Cyprus and New Zealand. People are listening to this all over the world. And I just wonder if is this the same? This is does this make sense to you? The hardest thing is not to imagine a better future but rather to believe that you deserve it. What has to happen for you to believe you deserve something? Oh, that's deep right. So deep. When we when we want this is what I have observed in my experience is that if we want literally exponential growth, we have to grow inside the internal growth we have to groove ourself from the inside out and that's where the greatest work is done. The reinvention, the carving out the the ability to stop what's holding us back and start what will take us to a place where we're just better and I just like you just to take some time. Take some time. Don't judge any of that unless you want to just sit where am I lying to myself? Where am I saying that I'm doing something but I don't do it. Maybe I'm saying something externally but I'm not practicing it internally. And this is why, again, what's the greatest thing you'll ever do? Will it not be who you become and the passion that you find in yourself and the joy that you find in yourself to overcome who you thought you were, and show the world? What you're really all about? I was just asking some people before and they were talking about empathy. And I was asking, you know, what's one of your greatest strengths? And this lady said empathy and I said, Well, empathy about what what's the greatest empathy you'll ever have? Now, this is something we've played a lot on the podcast, but for me, the greatest empathy you'll ever have is your empathy towards your future self and this is Meg Jay clinical psychologist, listen to what she says.

Meg Jay  19:44

So philosopher, Derek Parfit said we neglect our future selves because of some sort of failure of belief, or imagination. So I'm going to say that again, because it's really important. We neglect our future selves because of some sort of failure of belief, or imagination. But that's a problem because research shows that our brains think about our future selves, similarly to how they think about strangers. And that's where the empathy gap comes in. It can be difficult for us to care about a version of ourselves that we haven't met yet. Yet. Research also shows that if we find a way to close that empathy gap between our present selves and our future selves, we start to think more about what we could do now to be kind to ourselves down the line. So the idea here is just to try to get to know your future self. Because when we spend time connecting with that person, we do some reverse engineering and we start to ask our present selves questions about how our present and our future can come together or meet somewhere in the middle along the way.

Pete Cohen  20:53

Fascinating, right? You don't find that absolutely fascinating because if you if you don't, then you're listening to the wrong podcast. If you do, you're in the right place at the right time. The highest form of empathy, I would say, is the empathy you have for your future. The way I look at the world, right now. The majority of people in the world, especially adults, are living a future that they don't actually want. What they're doing today will create a future than they look back and go you know what, I really wish I'd made some better decisions. I wish I'd not lied to myself so many times. Again, easy to shame, blame and complain and make excuses. But you have an opportunity right now, to look at the world with a fresh pair of eyes. You have an opportunity right now to put a big smile on your face. And say Who am I actually committed to becoming? Because what happens with human beings we think we are our past. We now know that everything we do, isn't driven by our past. Our past affects who we are, but it doesn't dictate who we become. I believe a massive part of who we become is our association, our connection to the future. And for us with everything we do with the future self podcasts, all the work we do, it's about, look, you know who you're going to be tonight. You know who you're going to be tomorrow, you know who you're going to be next week, you know that you can you can see you've got an idea of that, but you beyond a few weeks and months. If you don't know who that person is, why would you have empathy for that person? Why would you behave unless you're one of a very few people around the world that a you don't care about? The Future, which is fair enough. You don't have to, you've given up on it. Or you just like improving? You're one of those few people around the world. You just like improving you like getting better. It doesn't have to go anywhere in particular, you'd like to just do something because you like how it makes you feel knowing that it's improving you. So what's your biggest takeaway from what you have just heard today? Is it possible that your future self is actually calling you up? You know, telling you hey, listen, this is what you need to do. You know, but maybe you just hung up on yourself too many times. You're not listening but that's okay. You don't have to

just imagine your future self was phoning you up. What would your future self say to you? Imagine picking up the phone to your future self. You in a year's time five years time. I mean, we talk to ourselves anyway, right now you're talking to yourself but what if your future self was to walk? What would your future self say? I've got your back. What? I talked to my future self every day I'll go meet my future self every day. The technology that we have created and with the Stop One Start One challenge. One of the tools that we have is that we show you we'll take you through a guided process to go and see your future self go meet that person get to know that person is that not the greatest thing you'll ever do is to get to know the person who you're committed to becoming and be guided by that person. I don't know. But for me, that's so much of what we do and we will continue to do so I'd love to know from everything that you've heard today. What's your biggest takeaway How to Stop Lying to Your Future Self? Well, I think the first thing is to understand that the private victories precede the public victories. If you want external success, you have to win internally. Do what you say you're going to do? Put it all out there right now and make the decision to become more than who you are today. Your Future it's unwritten. It's completely unwritten. And you have the power to change. We'll see you next time for another Future Self podcast.