13 Sep, 2022

Pete Cohen  0:00

Happy, beautiful, amazing day. Yes, yes, yes, it is the Future Self podcast and today we are talking How to Transform Your Identity and Create the Life You Want. I'll see you after the theme

Happy beautiful day, welcome to the Future Self Podcast, How to Transform Your Identity and Create the Life You Want. This is a subject that I'm very passionate about all my life's work. It really has come to this point. And I'm more fired up than I've ever been about helping people look to the future in such a way where they are inspired. They're hopeful, they're excited. They're ready. They're ready to take on what's coming because I think we all know what's coming right. What is coming. Challenges are they come in crisis? Are they coming obstacles? Are they coming? Are these coming? I mean, I think that a lot of us have kind of been sold this idea of life that life is all you know, I don't know. We want sunshine and rainbows and happily ever after. And I don't know whether that's how life is for you or whether you want that. I mean, just imagine literally someone come up to you and said hey, listen, hey, you know, you can have a holiday. And you can have as long as you want. How long would you say? Let us know seriously? How long would you say yeah, I'd want how long a week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks. Basically you'd go to a place and maybe sit by the pool or by the beach. How long would it be until you went? You know what I am bored. Why? Because probably you want something to do. And what do you want to do? I don't know. But I know I love to ask the question of what is it that you love to do? What is it that you love to do so much that you would actually pay for the privilege of doing it? Let me say that question again. is a great question. What is it in the world that you love to do? That you love it so much that you would pay for the privilege of doing it? For me, I would pay for the privilege of doing exactly what I'm doing right now. When I get to speak on stage. Again, I would pay for the privilege of doing that. It doesn't it's not always easy. You know, it's not it doesn't always work out the way that necessarily you want me but I would pay for the privilege of doing that. Why? Why it's kind of like what I feel I was put on this earth to do was was to share and connect and collaborate. And to be a good human being get people to look into the future in such a way where there they have possibilities. And I'm sure we can all remember times in our life where we were genuinely excited and enthusiastic about what we could do, the possibilities that existed and of course for many of us when we went to school that kind of almost got taken out of this and we learned to conform and be like everybody else and fit into a world and do what everyone else is doing and live up to other people's expectations and that's fine if that's what you want to do. But I believe actually today that most people are living a future that they don't actually want. I really do believe that I think most people are living a default future, a future that they're scared of. And that's their choice. But I'm here to wake people up to the fact that you don't have to do that you can transform your identity and you can live the life that you want. Now yesterday I had a visitor. You know Trump was hilarious Rob Moore, who some of you may have heard of, who has a very popular podcast that was called the disruptive entrepreneur that's now just called the disrupter disruptors. He literally traveled two and a half hours to come down and see me he just wanted to spend some time for me. He knows that right now. I'm having a pretty difficult challenging experience with the situation that my wife finds herself in being diagnosed with reoccurrence of a very aggressive brain tumor and having to say having to I've chosen to look after her because she can't do what she was doing is life has changed so quickly and so fast. You get still to have hope and optimism for a future where there are certain elements that are perhaps uncertain, but it's all uncertain.

It was interesting because he came down to see me and he was driven down here as driver put in the wrong postcode. So he sent me a message saying, Pete, I'll be with you. I'll be with you about an hour and a half earlier. Why because he ended up going to a place in Essex are the postcode of RM as opposed to my postcode. So he got here two hours late. He was exhausted when he got here but he literally just came here because he wanted to see Hannah. He wanted to he just wanted to spend some time with me. He had no literally no kind of agenda just wanted to sit. And I was quite, I was quite shocked by that, because he didn't have to do that. But that's something he felt compelled to do. Because he's compelled to be a better human being to be more humane, more loving, more kind. And when he knows that people will do things for him. He often does things for people, it's kind of reciprocated. And he said to me that he thinks there's good in all human beings. And I think there is too I think there's not only good inside human beings, I think there's greatness inside human beings. But when are we at our greatest really and we had a very long philosophical conversation and it was great for him to meet Hannah because my wife really enjoys listening to rob. And the fact that he donated a couple of 1000 pounds to a fund that we're putting together. It was just like, I was humbled by by him, and I've seen him transform I've known him for 20 years and to see people transform to see people become more how to transform your identity and live the life you want. I think it really all starts off with trying to understand that most of us are living a default future. We're living a self fulfilling prophecy. And we who we are today is who we think we're going to be. We're probably going to end up down the line going How did I get here? This is not where I want to be. See, when we look at identity it's one of the most fascinating words in our in our logo, which is mi365. The AI stands for a few things, but one of the main things It stands for is identity. And you know, write that word down identity and go and google it. You know, what does it mean? It's fascinating what it means in its origin. It really kind of means your repeated beingness. So when we identify with ourselves, this is who I am. Really your identity is what you are most committed to. There were some big questions. How how do you define yourself? How do you define yourself? How do you speak about yourself? Your identity is how you define yourself. It's your beliefs about yourself. It's what you prioritize it's what you see and love about yourself. And I just find it really fascinating. When people look at themselves, what do they see? Because if you really want to transform your identity and live the life you want you've got to know the game that you're playing. And what is the game that you're playing? I mean, I don't know. But I love to, you know, what's your favorite board game? Is it monopoly? Is it risk? I don't know. Why do we play those games? Guess who. We play the game because what was fun, right and we probably know that we've got the opportunity to laugh, maybe win. But with you. What is the game that you're playing? And if you look at the game that you're currently playing, where do you think that's going to take you see, I've been playing the game for years, and I've often had to reinvent reinvent what I was doing so 11 years ago. When my wife was first diagnosed with a brain tumor. I am a very resourceful person, very resourceful, and I know a lot of people I was brainwashed by my parents. My dad said it's not what you know, it's who you know. My mum always said there's an answer to everything. So professionally I know a lot of people and I've got a lot of answers to lots of things. I get up every day at four o'clock on my epic quest to learn to evolve to create a bit of peak code. Basically, that's what I want. I'm committed to my future self despite the challenges that I faced What about you? Because I think that basically, we're all marketing to ourselves. We are marketing a future that we don't want.

That's how I see it. Or when I talk to people. That's what I see more and more. And if you're stuck and if you're procrastinating and you're ruminating and you're getting distracted and you're making excuses. Well, maybe you're just trapped in an old self, an old identity and maybe now is the time for you to upgrade. Do you want to upgrade? I've been looking at my my Apple phone. I've got two of them. And I'm been looking at some of the new phones with the onesie Tesla bringing out a phone as well. It was gonna be an interesting thing, isn't it? I see Apple of bringing out a car then whether you know that is one electric car. But I look at the cameras on these other phones and I've got envy. I've got phone envy. And I'm thinking I'm thinking about that. I'm thinking about making a change. I'm thinking about upgrading but what about you if you can upgrade anything in yourself? Would you upgrade? Procrastination? What would you upgrade it to upgrading ruminating going over the same thoughts everything. Anyway, the reason I was telling you about my wife is you know I went on an epic adventure to find a cure for her. For her brain tumor she was given 18 months to live right? I went on an epic adventure. I don't know too many people that would have done that. But I didn't do it alone. I did it because my coach who was alive at the time, I didn't know what to do. Everyone needs a coach. Everyone needs help from time to time. And my coach said to me find people that are still alive with the same brain tumor and find out why. And then he said Ask her what she's going to do when she gets better. Little did I know that those two bits of advice would change my life forever. And we did find a cure. And my wife has been free of cancer for 10 years has recently come back. It's aggressive and now I've got to go again. I gotta go again. I've got to commit to a future that's different to the future that I saw. I've got changed things around. This is me. This is my reality. I'm not saying it has to be anybody else's. That being paired prepared to do whatever it takes. And that's why I ask that everyone who you know who listens who's involved in my sphere of influence. Maybe you listen to our YouTube maybe you listen to us on clubhouse, maybe you listen to the podcast, or live broadcasts that we do. I'm asking you, what type of future do you want? Do you want to become and not to judge not to blame not to shame. Look, if you if you feel stuck, you're not alone. I believe that being stuck is often a sign that there's that you need to do something. And if you procrastinate and put things off, that's okay. You don't have to do that. It's just you're probably good at doing it. See in psychology, we know that we used to think this is what we used to believe in psychology. I think this is fascinating. We used to believe that humans were driven by pain. And I think that there is a lot of truth in that but I really do believe now in the last 15 to 20 years the whole world of neurosciences is pretty evident that we know what is driving us is our view of the future. And there is this term called prospection. You know, when we look at the American Dream, the American dream was Europeans that were leaving Europe because they didn't have to pay taxes and there was the opportunity to prospect and find gold. But what are we prospecting? Are we prospecting a future that one day we don't want that future is now the time to wake up and to be committed to something more than what you're currently experiencing? See how when we look at what our brain is our brain is just predicting machine. Our brains form memories and we have experience for the basic sake of being able to predict the future. And it's fascinating how people often want to know their future by asking somebody else so what is your frame of the future? What is incomplete?

And this is the fascinating thing I've spoken about this before but when we look at where we are right now, if we want to move forwards, I mean I've worked with so many people and when they come to work with us and be involved with our various coaching programs, sometimes I've had to say to them, Look, this is not the right time for you to do this. I think you actually need to sit down and with a counselor or a therapist and just work that you can do both at the same time. But I think sometimes if you're holding on to something and you want to hold on to something else, you've got to let go of what isn't complete. What is it that maybe in your life that you haven't been able to reframe or you haven't been able to kind of look at it from the point of view of what happened for me, not to me, that you're able to make sense of the experience because if not trauma is and I again I can be brutally honest. Again because I think honesty is a powerful ability that I didn't realize I had a lot of unresolved trauma recently. Because what happened recently with my wife, it just brought up a whole load of trauma from 11 years ago, of fighting for literally two years to save my wife's life and going on this journey with her I didn't even realize that was a dare. But that's why it's so important to have good people around you that can help you that you can talk to and be honest, open and honest, is so much easier when you're committed to something and what are you committed to what is incomplete?

This is what I love to do. And this is why many of you listen, I mean, if you think about why you're listening to this, you're listening to this because I'm sure there's an outcome that you're you're looking for you you're looking for something that there's a goal. But ultimately, there's nothing more powerful than surrounding yourself with people who remind you of the future that you want. Just isn't that amazing? When you get together with people right today, you know, go on if you can go and hang out with people that you've known for years, and see what you talk about. Chances are what you're talking about is what you did, what happened the good old days. But when you surround yourself with people who remind you of the future that you want, wow. That's where the magic is. I want to talk about a few more things before we wrap this up. I want to talk about commitment. And if you look at your life, what are you genuinely committed to there's there's a book called the 15 laws of conscious leadership. And I love He explains that commitment is a statement of what is you can know what you're committed to by the results that you're producing. And this is where I think often people just want to maybe just run away, run away because if you look down at your waist, for example, and you see you know how much body fat you have on your body, you could say well that's a direct correlation to how committed you are to your health. And then of course you can judge it and criticize it but that's not necessarily going to help. When you look at your bank balance. Again, that can be a result of your commitment to your financial independence and not for everyone because I don't know everyone everybody's different. But I love that whole thing of commitment is a statement of what is. And I have to look at this myself. And I've been asking myself some pretty big questions around this is I think it's all about work in progress. And when we look at our identity because that's what this podcasts of how do you transform your identity, you can know what your identity is, by the behaviors that you're engaging in. So if you do what so many people do, which is they're engaging in behaviors, which is or doing well because your identity is what you're most committed to, and what you're most committed to is reflected in your own behavior. So don't judge it. Don't criticize it. Don't analyze it. Just look. Look at your behavior. Look how you're talking to yourself. And look look at that. Look at what you do, whether you're spending huge amounts of time, endlessly scrolling on social media or whatever it is you do or watching the news. Just become aware that all of behavior is driven by goals and outcomes. We know this, we know this, everything we do. But most of our goals are reactive to an environment or culture. So one of the most fascinating things I read years and years ago was just this is so fascinating to me. Don't lose sight of our goals. We just get nearsighted by shorter goals where they give us something in the moment. And unless we start playing a bigger game or have a bigger vision of our future, then I think what tends to happen is we just tend to go in reacting mode. Most people in reacting mode they get up every single day before you know it, they're reacting, they're reacting to their environment. So they're in an urgent mode. Everything is urgent everything is happening fast. It's very hard and you can understand if you're in reacting mode. It's probably most people don't want to stay in that space. So they want to get out of it. So short term hits of dopamine, get them out of that. And then with goals you're either approaching or avoiding something and most of our behavior is driven by short term rewards. I don't like where am I don't like how I'm feeling I want to get out of it. And it's not to say it's right or wrong. It just is what it is getting out of the immediate battles. And this is my challenge to you invest in a future identity commitment to a better future, upgrade your behavior, downgrade your behavior. That's why we we started stock one start on because you know our goal is very simple. It's not necessarily easy, but it's simple that we have people every single day waking up with great intentions and bringing their intentions into play. I mean, what greater strength is there and human beings who are committed to a future committed to a future self who are prepared to do what they say they're gonna do to downgrade what doesn't serve them and upgrade them? What does serve them and we call that identity capital is the minute I quote a lot of people when I speak and one of them is definitely Viktor Frankl and I love his quote. He says it's a peculiar cute peculiarity of man, that you can only live by looking into the future.

We're not we're kept from our goals, not by our goals, but a clear path to lesser goals. That's what seems to happen. So if you do want to change, you can change but I think it's just a question of looking at okay, where would where would I like to be? My not the identity I have about myself now, but what's my future identity? You know, it's it's a little crazy that because of what's happened to my wife, my identity about my relationships with her has changed. That's one key life domain, isn't it? relationships with the people that matter most. Those relationships have strengthened so much over the last few weeks because so many people have just come to the for how can I help you? What do you need P. And you feel this deep love that my future identity of myself in relationships has improved? I've realized you know, with my wife this the commitment to her that's why I married her right. But it's taken something like what's happened for me just have a big wake up call. And that's what I'd love to do is to give you a wake up call and say you don't have to be your being right now. You can become someone who you want to pursue. That's what Steven Bartlett said, you know, I knew at 15 years old who I was pursuing Ghandi said I know the change that I need to be. Our perception shapes our behavior. Our language shapes our perception and we shift our perspectives using generative language. So when you start talking about the future that you want to create, with your relationships with with your with your health. Just to recognize in any one moment, you have the opportunity to change. It's just a question of whether you're ready to go from identity to recognizing what is the identity, the identity that you want to bring that into practice, practice. I love it. What's your practice? I always love talking to people, what are you practicing? What are you working on? What are you looking to master? Because I am going to play you something I came across this morning and it really just really just once again, changed the way I was looking. It gave me a heightened sense of what we talked about when we talk about identity. Listen to Dr. Benjamin Hardy.

Dr. Benjamin Hardy  21:45

In fact, what the research shows in psychology positive psychology is basically number one, your future self is going to be really different than you think. Just think about yourself right now. Think about where you're at compared to pass off five or 10 years ago. I guarantee there are aspects of your life right now that you could have never predicted for good and for bad. But you're a different person than you predicted and could have expected 510 1520 years ago. And the truth is your future self is going to be a lot different than you expect but they can be even 10 times different than you expect if you start really playing a different game. Now.

Pete Cohen  22:17

It really is. For me, it's just about playing a different game. I don't want to play the game that I played in the past. I want to play a different game and I want to help as many people as possible connects to a future self you're going to meet your future self one day and I'd love you to be able to meet that person and be proud of who you became. What will be your greatest ever treat achievement how to transform your identity and live the life you want. You've got to first of all know that you can you can when your identity is your repeated beingness but you can define yourself differently. You can act differently, you become someone completely different. Are you ready to live life like never before? Are you ready to show the world really what you're truly capable of? Are you ready for reinvention? Because if you do decide for reinvention, just be aware that you're going to come up against some resistance. What is that resistance? Well, it can be internal, a part of us that just wants to survive and stay where we are. It can be external from people that go what you do in that's not you. But your future is unwritten. And you do have the power to change. Thank you so much for listening to the Future Self podcast. What was your biggest takeaway from this? We've just spent a bit of time together write it down, share it with me, contact me, let me know because I am committed to help you and support you. In creating a future like I said that one day you look back and go wow, look what I did. Take care, and thanks for listening.