11 Oct, 2022

Happy, beautiful, amazing, fantastic day. It is the Future Self podcast, and I am your host Pete Cohen. Today's podcast is called The Meaning of Life Explained. I'll see you after the thing chin greater things that expect in some bye the spectrum from my Hey, happy, beautiful, amazing day. What is the meaning of life? Well the meaning of life here you go. It is the meaning that you give it that's what I believe. I'm not here to tell anybody what they should and shouldn't do. That's not on my business. I had enough of that as a child. How many of us heard a lot of that growing up? You should do this and you shouldn't do that. And I think as Tony Robbins once I once heard him say stop shooting on yourself. Because most of us we do a lot of that rather than transcending ourselves transcending the former version of ourselves. This is the first time you've ever listened to the Future Self podcast. This is a podcast that is over six years old, over 400 episodes. It has transcended itself. It started off as the Mi 365 podcast. Then it changed to the Pete Cohen podcast and then my good friend, Rob Moore suggested that I change it again because I changed it then back to Mi 365 podcast. He goes what is Mi 365 If you want people to listen to your podcast, maybe you should have a title that tells them what it is on the tin. And this podcast does exactly what it says on the tin because this podcast is called future self and it is dedicated to your relationship to the future. Everything that we do as human beings is governed by our relationship to the future. So let me ask you, how is the future looking? What do you see? I actually have a crystal ball over there. I'm looking at it right now. And I'm looking into it and I can see I remember hearing a story about Jim Rohn. Someone asked him he was working with a board of what a terrible name for a board. You know, that said a company we're just they're just so bored in many cases because they're not really inspiring the people that work in an organization to have a vision and a future that they want to go after. But Jim Rohn was asked, Can you predict the future? He said, Yeah, absolutely. It's opportunity mixed with difficulty. And I think I love that right? Because I think if we look back through our life, we'd see well, there were lots of opportunities and there are lots of difficulties and I'm only where I am right now because I've navigated through that. But I want to do a deeper dive into this today because I think that we have this this incredible I'm going to say the word again opportunity to transcend ourselves and I think the meaning of life is to transcend to who we were. That's the meaning of my life. The word transcending means to go further to rise above or be more important or better than something, especially a limit. And this is where it gets really interesting because what are the limits? That you put on yourself? That's a good question, isn't it? Well, that's part of my role, right? Part of my role as a coach is to help someone go from where they are to where they want to be. I believe I'm one of the I'm so much better than I was 30 years ago, even more than 32 years ago.

3:52

Can't believe it. Or 33 years ago 1989 I was a coach, I was a fitness instructor. Why do people join a gym? Good question. Many very few people get to where it is they want to go because they don't know the person in the future that they could become if they don't transcend their former version of themselves that thinks they're overweight and unfit and unhealthy. Then we're going to they're never going to change. What have you already transcended in your life? See, Transcendence for me is that's what Abraham Maslow was talking about. Maslow is one of the most well known people are one of the godfathers of positive psychology. Man's Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl. He said that, you know, the meaning of life is to find something that is worthy of you and then work towards it, knowing that it's probably going to be difficult and challenging. Maslow said that self actualization to find out what really makes you come alive. And then once you've done that transcend that self transcendence to go further to rise above or be more important or better than something not someone not some someone else but maybe you to be a better version of you now if you look in the mirror right now, what do you see? Do you like what do you see? Hey, like, what do you see? I mean, it's incredible who you are. And I don't know how much work you put into that probably quite a lot. Who could you be? Who could you be? And this is a question I would love you to consider as we continue to inspire you to go out there and create the future that you want is what is making you less than you can be. Let me say that again. What is making you less than you can be and is it possible, that part of what is making you less than what you can be is what greater things that expect in samurai

6:04

what is stuck in your head?

6:14

The narrative in so many cases is where we get stuck. We find it hard to transcend who we could be to who we could become because of the narrative just because of what we're telling ourselves. The story that we're telling ourselves is fascinating and you think is really interesting when you when you meet someone. What do you say to someone if you saw Hey, how are you? What is that? Where does that come from? Well, the origins of how are you a very biblical I mean, how are you with God? Now for me what that means is how am I with myself? What is the experience like of being me and most people don't talk about it. They're not even aware that it's going on but it's a nightmare. My ask to you is don't let who you are. stop you from being who you could be. me say that again. Don't let who you are. stop you from being who you could be. See when we look at what is the meaning of life, or maybe we should look at the meaning of the word meaning do you think it would be a good place to go? Well, the meaning of the word meaning means something that is important and something that you value. Right? And I think we just look around the world and I think we're just putting importance on things that really aren't that important. And we're putting value on things like that really aren't that important, like the value of I need to be loved. I need to be accepted the value of look what I have, look what I've got, rather than what value can I add to your life? What difference could I make to your life? Who can I become? How can I best serve the world? How can I best serve nature? See the best life coach in the world? I'm the second best life coach in the world, right? The first best life coach in the world is mother nature. Mother Nature teaches us everything that we need to know but we are living very out of balance with Mother Nature. So let's take this a little bit further. What and who do you identify with? Let me ask this and this is deep right this is deep philosophy. What and who do you identify with? That word identify or the word identity means the state of being the same. So what happens is every single day people wake up and they continue to act out who they think they are. And that's where the challenge really is. Because do you really want to be who you are or do you want to be someone else? I don't mean someone else's in someone else's in not being new. But being the person that you could be. See, this is the ultimate dilemma that I think so many of us face in life to let go to be the Phoenix that rises from the ashes. But do you want to be reborn? You see, the whole thing of the Phoenix is it's old, it's tired. It's it's ready to burn to be reborn. So I don't think it's a question of whether you want to be reborn. I think it's a question of whether you want to be burned. Right whether you want to let go rather than identifying with a former version of yourself, identifying with who you could become. A lot of us are holding on to some really old ideals. This is who I am. This is the I did the personality test. It told me that this is the sort of person I am I'm not as many of you know, I'm not a big fan of personality testing. You know, I was told when I was a child that I would never amount to, you know, university, all of that sort of stuff because I was dyslexic, and bla bla bla bla bla, and I went out there to try and prove them wrong. And it almost killed me because I've spent a lot of my life trying to prove people wrong. How many of you have done that's not a bad energy, but then you're just killing dragons, right and slaying dragons and trying to prove to the world that you are someone so it didn't matter how many books I wrote or how many TV programs or the famous people I worked with. It didn't make really any difference to me deep down inside. Because I was looking for something outside of myself. I was still my former self helping everybody else change themselves, but not really working on myself and what do you think has happened as a result of me working on myself in the way that I am now?

10:24

Well just work with me and see what happens. See, do you have the capacity to seek out what you're capable of? Well, God, this is big, big right. Let me ask that question again. Do you have the capacity to seek out what you are capable of? To transcend who you are, and to seek out who you could become Is that not what life is about? It's about the meaning of life to transcend who you were, and to seek out how you could become. I mean, just watch any film any film, the hero's journey. There it goes, right. There it goes. Watch the film. Someone's called to adventure Dorothy didn't want to go down the yellow brick road. She lived in a black and white world and then there was a hurricane. And then she woke up with that house in a colorful world and she met a scarecrow. And she went on the hero's journey. She didn't know which path to take, follow the yellow brick road for love a lover and then they ended up going down a road and realizing that she actually had all the power in the first place. And how many of us have watched that story? You know? Of the hero's journey, or Harry and Harry Potter and Alice and Alice in Wonderland or rocky, we've seen it all we've seen it all. And what most of us do is we sacrifice our own success, our own story for other people's and it's fascinating what we do because we love to that whole Johnny Depp thing I don't know how many of you saw any of that. I mean, what is that all about? It's fascinating, isn't it? Do you have the capacity to seek out who you're capable of yes or no? Do you have the capacity to transcend who you are to seek out who you could become? Do you have the capacity to seek out what you're capable of? And take a moment to think about this? Please don't sacrifice who you could be for who you are. And that is what most people are doing in the world today. In my opinion. I believe that most people in the world today are following the Joneses. Whoever the Joneses are, people are just being like sheep and following what all the other sheep are doing. But not you. You wouldn't be listening to this podcast, you wouldn't be you would be somewhere else. You'd be scrolling. You'd be I don't know what you'd be doing watching something on Netflix. You'd be in another room on clubhouse. Don't sacrifice who you are who you could be, and I actually believe deep down inside myself that most people maybe everyone I don't know. I don't know, everybody that they know they are. They know their sacrifice and they know they're not being who they're capable of. They know they're not growing. They know they're not contributing. They know they're not being who they could be. I might be wrong and I think that's one of the biggest reasons in the world right now. There is as much worry doubt fear, depression, anxiety, because people feel lost. And they're just stuck. And they need people like us to show them they don't have to be who they're being. I want to discover. See, I don't know about you, but maybe you're like me, I want to discover my error is my fault. I don't want to hide away from them. I want to seek out challenge and find my limits. What about you? Or do you just want to drift As Napoleon Hill talked about 98% of people just drifting and it was a 1920s look at now just drifting hanging in the air. How many of you say Pete Yeah, I don't want I want to discover my errors. My faults, I want to seek out challenge I want to find my limits. I want to find out where my limits are. And I want to do it in a way that is engaging and challenging. Because I've slayed a lot of dragons and true proved a lot of people wrong, but I wasn't doing it for me. And it was only through my wife having a brain tumor all those years ago and Googling and draw your future and finding Patti Dobrowolski and then being able to draw the future that I wanted to see. And then going on that journey of helping people and then again with my wife being re diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor in November. Again, it made me start thinking about the future. But before I start thinking about that, to start off with, I was painting all the worst case scenarios you could think about. I mean, I was thinking of her not being here. I was thinking I was waking up in sweats all the time. My mind was running around all over the place, but I had to find a way out of where we were and a lot of people don't find out ways way ways that the where they are. They just accept the limitations of where they are. And we don't all have to do that. And it was only when we finally decided what we were going to do that everything changes that a future that we want to go out and create in a way that is engaging and challenging. What about you?

14:43

You see when you want to take on the load of something else, then obviously you got to let go of what you don't need. And that's what Buddhism and one of the key things in Buddhism is to let go. Let go of what you don't need. If you're attached to things which many of us are whether that be sugar, drugs, alcohol attached to bad habits, habits that don't serve you you're not alone. That's why you want to get in a community of people. That's why we created Stop One Start One, which is a global opportunity for you to decide, okay, who do I want to become? Let's go to work. Let's go to work. Let's stop what needs to stop. You can't take on the load of something else on the path to continue incremental improvement. I wrote that down. Take on the load of something else. Right. What are you taking the load on? If you want continue incremental improvement is a good idea right? Isn't this a good idea? So if you decide where it is that you're going, who you want to become, you can use your sense of meaning as go back to that word meaning what does it mean? It means importance and value. Please take a moment right now and think about it. What do you attach meaning and value to? There's not right, it's not wrong. What do you attach it to? Because when you use your sense of meaning, let's say what's in if growth and contribution is what it's important to you, then you can contact you can calibrate your progress towards that. But that I think there are rules to this I believe there are rules to this. If you want to use your sense of meaning to calibrate your progress through life, this is the rule. You have to aim at the highest possible good that you can conceive. If you want to you know Grant Cardone talks about this, you know the whole cortex Go big or go home but if you're a perfectionist, this is going to be difficult. It's difficult because for me, you're never going to get there. There is no there there's always just that becoming there's always a destination there's always something to get out of bed for and I mentioned this the other day, this isn't my quote who said this conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth. I'd say it was the enemy, the enemy of anything creative, which is growth. And most of us are conforming to an outdated version of ourselves. And I'm not saying it's easy to change. I'm not. I'm not saying that. But this is a bold Who's ready for a bold statement. This is what I heard. Jordan Peterson say about this fascinating about being a tyrant. How many of you would think of yourself as a tyrant? What is a tyrant? It's a ruler who has unlimited power over others and uses it unfairly. Now most of us wouldn't think of ourselves as tyrants but I think a lot of people are you're ruling over your future self you're not allowing your future self to come to the table. You've got this say unlimited. I don't know whether it is unlimited, but you've got a hell of a lot of power. And I think a lot of people use it in an unfair way by stopping themselves because we don't feel like it or it's just difficult or we think it's hard rather than let me ask you this question. You ready for the big question? What will be your greatest ever achievement? What will it be? Will it be? Could it possibly be? Not who you are, but who you become? Do you want me think of that Phoenix burning to the ashes? Do you want to be reborn? Do you want to be reborn? No one can rebirth you or maybe you think they can but the question is do you want to burn into flames? If someone came into this room, or listen to this podcast and listen to me here say that do you want to burn? Do you want to let go but what needs to burn away? What is constraining you because in a world full of order and cat you know there's there's order we've got to pay attention to order this chaos in the world. But if you identify with the capacity to transcend who you are, to recognize that you are error ridden, there are limits but you want to put yourself in a situation that challenges you where you choose the dragons would love to help you get you out of bed? What is the game that you're playing? See the transformation process? That's where we have to come back to you know you want something big and it all comes down to today. It all comes back to what's the daily operation. And often when we start something being afraid to be being prepared to be bad at it to suck at it. But what there's nothing more powerful than when you're working with a community of people are you on the path to constant incremental renewal? Because if you're not, then it's just going to be chaos.

19:37

So I want you to take a moment and I want to I want you to commend yourself for listening to this because you know you've just dedicated time to listen, you've just dedicated time to giving me the greatest thing that you own, which is your attention My goal is so big that it's a little scary I need courage in order to make this happen. But the goal is to have millions of people all over the world that wake up every single day with certain intentions. But the major intention to become more to grow to contribute to make the world a better place and realizing if they want the world to be better players. How do they be better themselves? What exactly do they need to stop? What do they need to stop? What could they get really, really really good at? You see who you become if you could see the lens of your future which I believe you can you could like you've got a lens and you could see where the person that you could become. You know that when you look back to today, you'd realize how you got there. It was just incremental gains. It was doing things that you often didn't really feel like doing. But you did them because you want to play a bigger game. Is it not now time to go big? Or go home? I'm happy to work with you. You can join Stop One Start One. Seven pounds a month. What are you going to get from that? Well, first off, you're going to get me on your case because everybody needs pushing everyone needs that little bit of pushing. I believe you are pushed into this world. And most of us just need that little bit of support encouragement. I'm going to help you identify with who you want to be with your health, your energy, your relationships, your wealth, your work, will help you work out what do you need to start? What do you need to start? We'll help you be a part of a community that has a similar start and stop to you and guide you and support you every step of the way as best as we can. We can't do it for you. Just a question of whether you want to take on the ultimate responsibility to respond with the ability that you have. S one S one.me Thank you so much for listening to the podcast and we'll see you next time the meaning of life is the meaning you give it what is meaning. Meaning is what is valuable and what is important. See you next time. Goodbye. Thanks for listening to the Future Self podcast