24 Dec, 2022

Pete Cohen  0:00

Happy beautiful day it’s the Future Self Podcast. Today's podcast is called the Path to Mastery in 2023. I'll see you after the theme tune

We're talking all things mastery. And this is Master Blaster by Stevie Wonder so what areas of your life do you want to master? What areas of your life do you want to make some gains? Do you want to blast your previous self Are you ready to outperform anything you've done before in your past? I would imagine you are other Why would you be listening to the Future Self Podcast

I think everyone is feeling pretty. Like it's not July Yes.

So this is a subject I'm just very passionate about the Future Self Podcast. Really what we're interested in is helping as many people look to a future in such a way where they go there's a future that I want to go and carve out and create. There's something I want to build something I want to just get better at that you know what, I think the odds are massively stacked against us in the areas of our life that we want to make gains and I've dedicated my life to this. And you know, sometimes I have to tell you that I think is there a point to continuing to go on about this message? Because I realized that sometimes you tell people things and they're clearly not interested in what you have to say. I wonder if you've ever had that challenge in your life where you've tried to explain to someone someone's come to you, because they want something and that's what I've dedicated my life to doing from the age of 19 years old 1989 That's where it all started. That's where people were paying money to sit down with me for me to do a fitness assessment on them to then design them a program for them to get fit. That's what they were there for. And they were paying proper money for this, you know, and I thought, Okay, well, this is my job. It's my response ability to help this person, get what they want. But I took it personally because when I realized that most people really weren't prepared to do what I was showing them to do. I was insecure enough at that time that I thought it was me. And I've probably spent a large amount of my life thinking it's my responsibility to help people. Get the answers. Help people get the results they're looking for. But obviously, I've worked out as I've gotten older, that just most people really don't want to do the work. And I've always tried to set the record straight you know, as I'm looking here right now looking at the book, Thinking Grow Rich, which many people have read. And I remember really being shocked by what Napoleon Hill wrote and bear in mind, he wrote this in the 1920s. The book came out in 1937. Basically, he was saying only 2% of people really will get what they want. And everybody else is drifting. And I don't know what you think about that, but I think that's the reality and I'm gonna make a bold statement today because I might be wrong here. But this is just my opinion, and my opinion is forever changing as I'm on my own path to mastery. And here's the bold statement. I think most people are just looking for an excuse to be hard on themselves, looking for an excuse to allow themselves to have that familiar feeling of, I'm just not enough and I'm going to prove it to myself. I'm going to prove to myself that I can start something and I can do it for a bit and then I can give it up. I'm going to prove that to myself. Now, I would make such a statement. Because I can and because even to this day, having worked with so many people all over the world, just see that pattern. That pattern that oh, they're all too familiar feeling of I'm just not enough and in a world that if there was a message that was very common, but not that common that it's so obvious, a message that comes to all of us that you are not enough the way that you are and you need something that you don't currently have in order to fill the void within you. And again, I'm not talking for everybody, because I don't know everybody but my curiosity as to why people would start something and not complete it. Well, your science you know, we've talked about this a lot on the podcast many times we've talked about this ancient Sanskrit word that was came up two and a half 1000 years ago, which means hero in the beginning. How many people do you know who was sick and tired of being sick and tired of starting something and doing it for a bit and then giving it up? I mean, there is a term that is known as habit suicide, that people would start something and do it for a bit. And then after maybe they don't do it for a day or two days. And then two days becomes three days and it's almost like starting again. And then people have this all too familiar feeling of I'm just not good enough. I'm not quite right the way that I am. So here's a couple more questions for you. What will be the greatest thing that you ever do? What will be the greatest thing that you ever do when we look at the word mastery? And I'm really happy for Robert Greene. So Robert Greene wrote a book Mastery which I must have read probably four or five times. It blew me away. When I read this book and some other work, I read by Malcolm Gladwell, around the whole 10,000 hours of how long does it take to get good at something how many days is it takes to to form a habit? I mean, there's a lot of nonsense around that even I've been if you go look, look back and look at the book habit busting that I wrote 20 years ago, I talked about it takes 21 days to build a habit that's absolute nonsense. It could take 21 days, but the research shows it could take anything between 20 days and 180 days of doing something for it to become a habit and there was one particular study of where people were asked to walk after they had eaten a meal. And they you know, they were educated as to why that's a good idea that it helps to remove glucose from the bloodstream just by walking and they found that some people got into that habit quite quickly. But for some people there was a lot of what we call frontal tension free frontal lobe tension, that tension that it takes for us to act. And it's fascinating and I I really want to propose to any of you that listen to the Future Self Podcast that maybe today is the day or this is the week or this is the month, where you just really start applying the principles of mastery. And what areas of your life do you want to master? I mean, I don't like the word master because it sounds like it's a destination. For me mastery is an ongoing pursuit of something. If you go and look at what the word mastery means in the dictionary you can see it means a comprehensive knowledge or skill in a particular subject or activity. So let me say that again, a comprehensive knowledge or skill in a particular subject or activity, or a control of superiority over someone or some thing. Come on guys, let's let's just rejoice in what that word means. A comprehensive knowledge or skill in a particular subject or activity. So Robert Greene, who wrote the book mastery, I'm super proud of him, because you know, he has talked about this subject enough that all you have to do is type that word into Google. And what do you see you see that word of mastery because He's dedicated his life to mastery? You know, and I think what most people have dedicated their life to is to the starting and stopping of things, allowing themselves to to experience some fun, let's be honest, once again, I think it's always a good idea to start from a place of honesty, the man, one of the people that founded Alcoholics Anonymous said that the importance of starting with honesty, just be honest and this could be another reason for people to be hard on themselves. But please, that's not my point. I'm not here because I want you to feel less than or not good enough. I just want you to maybe wake up, step back and look back if you want to master anything. First off, just look at where you are right now. Don't analyze don't judge don't criticize, don't blame unless you want to, which is another thing that human beings are really good at doing. How many of you think you know I've really mastered that I've mastered giving myself a hard time. And we think we're intelligent. We think we're intelligent human beings. Homo sapien means wise being I don't think human beings are wise. I think we can homo prosperous, which is a book that's been written by a number of the kind of most famous people in the world of positive psychology around the world, homo prosperous, which talks about the practice of being a wise being and to be wise is definitely to step back, isn't it? Don't you think just to step back, and just look and look at your history? Because if you don't step stop and look back at your history, and then guess what? Guess what's going to happen? History is going to repeat itself. I was just thinking for a moment when we talk about mastery what areas of your life do you want to master seriously? I think what what great thing to master than to master yourself. Master what Master your patterns, master your habits, and enjoy this fantastic opportunity that we all have to reinvent ourselves. To me, the ultimate mastery is to reinvent. So let's just look at the word again. Mastery. Is this going to be the year? Is this going to be the year

where you get the comprehensive knowledge or skill that you have in a particular subject or activity? You take that to another level? Is this the year where you have control or superiority over someone or something? I'd say having superior superiority over your former self was Ernest Hemingway that said true nobility is by being superior to your former self. Now, I've just had COVID and I must have to tell you, it was I found it pretty tough. Found it pretty challenging. I'm not particularly good at not feeling very well. I'm sure I'm not the only one. But again, if we're being brutally honest, because I think it's important. Most people are aware of their existence, when they're not well. That's when often most people feel most alive. I mean, just take a moment to think about that for a moment. When was the last last time you were so aware of your own existence? I mean, this we talk about higher states of consciousness. Well, okay, that's another conversation but the state of having a cold, you know, these sleazy well, you're coughing or you've got a temperature, every single part of your body aches, or is on fire because you're in pain. That is when most people are so acutely aware of their existence. And again, it's not to judge that I just think it's a fact. But is there no better feeling then the feeling of just feeling alive? Today was the second day that I've been able to exercise since feeling better. Oh, my God, do I feel so much better? Wow, every cell of my body is vibrating with a higher frequency because I've moved did I feel like doing that this morning? What the hell's that got to do with it? What does how I feel got to do with it? Because when we're looking for the greatest mastery? Well, I think the greatest mastery is the mastery over your former self. And congratulations to Robert Green, you know, your type mastery in his name comes up. When you type my name into Google. Well, a number of different things come up. But what I want to be known for is helping people look to a future self that they want to go out and create and everything I do is just about helping people do that. And it's something we've only just really got started in this whole science of future self thinking is so new. And people still talk about you know, having a big why. And I'd say that's really overrated. I like to know what your Y is. Of course, I'd love to know what your y is, but I'd much rather know Who do you actually need to be. Who is the person that has bought your Y to life because now we have this opportunity to look at the future in such a way where we can have empathy for our future self, where we don't have empathy. What do we have? What's the opposite of empathy? Is it apathy? I don't even know I'm not I'm not the greatest wordsmith in the world. But what's the opposite of empathy? Empathy is where we talk about the growth mindset or the fixed mindset. Is there something in between? Empathy is where you have an emotional connection to something or someone. I have an emotional connection to you listening to this right now. I don't know where you are in the world. But there is an emotional connection and maybe you can feel that connection. And maybe that's why you keep listening. But what if there was no empathy? If there was no empathy means you don't have an emotional connection. I think that that's so important. If we were going to master anything to I'd say it's being emotionally connected to things that we want to do. Otherwise, what we do we do it out of the feeling of big being, we begrudge doing it, I don't feel like doing it. I'm not dying to really feel like it. I don't I don't I'm not interested really. So rather than to love. This is something I learned this year and it's so obvious. It's so obvious. So obvious, I just think most people miss it. If you don't love what you do, are you going to continue to do it? Really, honestly if you don't love meditating, are you going to continue to do it? If you don't love having a cold shower? Are you going to continue to do it? Probably not. Right. That's a good question. I want to give you some practicalities. And some a deeper dive into the subject of mastery. And I'm really looking forward to helping and supporting you in creating an unbelievable life. It was two years ago that I created the 30 day Kickstart program that is absolutely free, which is now sitting on our app which is absolutely like I said, it's absolutely free. And I don't know how many 1000s of people signed up to that. But literally no more than 2% of people completed it. You know, if people could look at what I do and go wow, Pete Cohen really excels in in helping people sort their life. out and then DIY in their life and break their habits and conquer their fears. Look what he's done for those people. If he's done for those people, what could he do for me? Well, I can't do it for you. I think we have to wake up to the fact that if you're looking for someone to make your life better, good luck. Good luck, that to really take responsibility for your health for your well being is something which is a very easy thing to start and stop. It's a very easy thing to just think well, there's no point you know, what's the point for me mastery. It's not it's it's not a process. It's about staying on a path. For me mastery is about my ability, your ability to set a goal and to put the processes in place that allow me to stay on a path. And if we don't master mastery, then what happens is we become people that we obsess about things right how many people do you know that have ever obsessed about something? You want immediate results, you push, you push, you push, you push, you push? And then you give up? Or you just dabble at things you get in you get quick, quick results. You only kind of rationalize and this isn't for me, or you just hack at things is hack, hack, hack hack. Again, you just give up. When mastery really begins. It's when the buzz wears off. You know, the buzz for something wears off with that hero in the beginning kind of just disappears, and you wake up and you think you know what, I gotta roll my sleeves up. And then with practice with diligent patient practice, you just go to work and you want to hit a plateau you want to hit a plateau of what this plateau is called the plateau of latent potential. Want to ask you are you ready to take on the Masters challenge? To love the plateau to love the process? Because it's probably one of the greatest things that you will ever do. You get so good at something that you didn't probably like doing in the first place, but you got so good at it, that you don't want to give up on the investment that you've made on this thing. But also what was difficult to do now become something that is just something you love to do, to be able to surrender to some form of practice.

Get in the game. Because we are not designed. There is always going to be resistance. I think for most people most of the time. There's always going to be resistance to anything growing. You just look outside right now. There's still snow on the ground here. There's activity going on underneath that snow. There are there are some seeds that are being that are trying to germinate. They're getting ready for the spring, but boy, they're going to have a rough ride. At the moment they have to endure freezing cold temperatures. And then there's bugs in the ground. You know it's going to be tough and it's got to find its way and it's coming up against resistance. It's the path to to any type of growth is going up against resistance. And what's the greatest resistance of all? Well, it can be the people around you that don't want you to make progress. Of course that happens. But the greatest resistance is the resistance within every human being that wants us to stay where we are that doesn't want us to step up or step out. That wants us to have that all too familiar feeling of I'm not enough. I'm going to prove it to myself. This might sound a bit harsh, but maybe sometimes it's nice to have a harsh message message to just realize that they're all too familiar feeling of I'm not enough. How many people today do you think there are in the world that look in themselves in the mirror and believe they're not enough? But then they want to go out and actually prove it to themselves so subconsciously they sub sabotage their efforts, because they've got an outdated view of themselves. They think who they are as who they're always going to be. They have a fixed mindset in terms of I'm not enough looking for validation from the outside world, rather than what has to happen for people to wake up. What has to happen for people to look at themselves in the mirror and think you know what? I'm done. I'm done with my old self. I'm ready to reinvent myself. I'm ready to double down. I'm ready to get good to get better at something. What is the point of life if it is not about getting better? So here's a few more questions for you. What areas of your life do you want to make significant gains and what areas of your life do you want to improve? Are you over the hill? Because you probably know deep down you're not over the hill. You feel like you are and I'm here to tell you the world is waiting for you the world is waiting for you. Your future self is waiting for you. It's time for you to have empathy for your future self. And if you don't believe me, well, here's a couple of people that can back this up. This is how Hirshfield

Unknown Speaker  22:09

I know it sounds a little weird to think about the future self as another person. But if you stop and take that notion seriously, I think it really helps explain why so many of us privilege today. Over tomorrow. Think about how we treat other people. If we care for them if we feel a sense of connection toward them. We will make sacrifices for them just like we do for our children, our aging parents and theoretically our spouses. And the same can be said for our future selves. If we feel a sense of connection to our future selves. We're going to make sacrifices today so that they have a better life in the distant future.

Pete Cohen  22:49

And think, you know, this whole science of future self thinking is still relatively new. And people still want to hold on to an outdated view of themselves. So I want to ask you the question from someone who deeply cares, who you actually committed to becoming? Who is that person? And are you ready to start having empathy for that person? Let's just take a moment to listen to psychologists make Jay.

Unknown Speaker  23:19

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. We start to ask questions like, How does everything I think I want going to fit or what does all this mean? About what I need to be doing now? Or here's one of my favorite questions to ask yourself at any age. If I'm in a job or a relationship or a situation I would like not to be in five years, then how much longer am I going to spend on this?

Pete Cohen  24:51

So more and more people will be hearing about this science of an art for me it's an art form of future self thinking. That what we now know that what we have many people have just spent their life looking in a different place looking for what is wrong looking for what is missing, looking for what we haven't got, and not that there's anything wrong with doing that. I think the path to mastery is to stop and look at where you are right now. And in many cases, that involves people talking to someone about how they're feeling and maybe dealing with some of the trauma that most of us have been through. But everywhere I look and everything I see I see human beings do incredible things. I see human beings do things that when we hear them, we go wow, look what you've done. Look what you've overcome. When I look at what my wife has been through this year and seeing who she is. She is a hero. Facing death, being literally not being able to move properly, not being able to do the work. That she wants to do her whole future, literally being thrown into the air where she's facing his death. But still, despite that, still finding something in herself that maybe she didn't even know that was there to see a future that she wants to go out and carve out and create that human beings we are work in progress and we mistakenly think we are complete. We think that this is the way that we are if we just woke up to the fact that you've done amazing things in your life if you stopped and you just got a piece of paper and you wrote on that piece of paper, everything that you've been through in your life, everything. If you looked at it, if you really took the time if you just stopped Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Look at what you've been through. Look what you've endured, the people that you've been there for. Look at the things that you've achieved, the study that you've done, the children that you've bought into this world, all the things that you have done. But I'm gonna ask you this question from someone who deeply cares. When you look at all of those things. How many of those things did you actually actually consciously choose? Probably a few of them. But most of them it just happened. It happened, shit happened. And you found a way to navigate through those difficulties. It's incredible what human beings can do. And just like Ghandi said, What man? It wasn't Gandhi. Gandhi said Be the change that you want to see in the world. It was Maslow, Abraham Maslow that said what man can be, he must be, he must be. What can you be? Most people all they can be is who they currently being, and just doing the best they can to navigate and get through life as best as they can. But that's not where the magic is. The magic is definitely in our ability to deal with adversity. I think the real magic that human beings just don't want to tap into is what they can create and who they can become. In a world that doesn't want you to do that and a world that wants you to over consume in a world that wants you to be a victim in a world that wants is trying to is trying to get your attention to get you to do what someone else wants you to do. As opposed to what do you want to do? What do you genuinely want to do? What areas of your life do you want to master? Are you ready? outperform your previous best Are you ready to practice mastery like never before? Let's see. Summarize what is mastery? Mastery is a comprehensive knowledge or skill in a particular subject or activity. My comprehensive knowledge or skill is in the science and the art of future self thinking. Who is your future self? Your future self is already there. My future self is talking to me right here right now. Of course I still have another voice the voice of you know not Christmas path but the voice that is my past that goes No don't bother you don't feel like doing that. Just stay here. No moving through all of that resistance. I want resistance. I want things to be difficult. I want them to be challenging, because that's where the growth is. So where do you want to have build a comprehensive knowledge of skill where it maybe you don't know at the moment, but maybe you want to work on it to find out and then the other meaning of mastery is a control or superiority over someone or something. I don't want to have superiority over anybody apart from my former self. How do I have that by building a strong compelling relationship to my future self? So has been your biggest takeaway from this podcast? We have people listening to this podcast all over the world. And in 2023 This podcast is seven years old. Wow. Seven years I'm super proud of myself. Seven years, every week, the least one episode sometimes two. I feel like it we only just got started. What about you? Are you ready? Are you ready to literally realize that one of the biggest things that you could master is to master that habit of allowing yourself to feel less than not good enough. That feeling have started it and I gave up. Are you ready to move through the drudgery of the plateau of latent potential? Are you ready to move through doing things when you just don't feel like doing it? Are you ready to get down to business? Let's get down. Let's get down to business. Give you one more night. one more night. Got this. We've had a million I want to thank you for listening to the podcast. So let's Well we'll be back for more inspiration more insights. For now, I want to wish you a happy beautiful, incredible amazing day.