Be Your Future Self Now by Benjamin Hardy
Juan Carlos Zambrano
Gerente de Finanzas @ Tecnofarma Bolivia | Coaching ontologico
INTRODUCTION
“To be, or not to be? That is the question.” — William Shakespeare, Hamlet”
PSYCHOLOGY’S 180 DEGREE REVOLUTION
“Assume the consciousness of being the one you want to be, and you will be saved from your present state.” —Neville Goddard1”
From an outside perspective, Jimmy’s transformation over the past six years is almost unbelievable. He went from a 17-year-old kid with zero money making videos in his bedroom to being one of the most famous people in the world. Extremely wealthy and business savvy, he aspires to one day become president of the United States.
Do methodologies exist that you and I can follow to create similar results in our own lives? The exciting answer is absolutely yes. Recent research in psychology provides an extremely simple explanation for MrBeast’s amazing transformation. You can apply the process for desired results and change in your own life.
This book will show you exactly how
A SHIFT IN THE SCIENCE
“Much of the history of psychology has been dominated by a framework in which people and animals are driven by the past.” — Martin Seligman, et al. 20”
In the 1990s, a group of revolutionary psychologists who dubbed themselves “positive psychologists,” questioned these central dogmas of psychology. They asked different questions and ran different types of experiments trying to better understand what led someone to be happy, healthy, and successful
This research, along with breakthroughs in technology and neuroscience, produced a different picture about what makes a person who they are. In fact, modern research provides a near opposite explanation from previously held beliefs.
Research now shows that a person’s past does not drive or dictate their actions and behaviors. Rather, we are pulled forward by our future.25
As human beings, we have a unique characteristic held by no other species on the planet. People have the ability to not only think about our own future, but to have countless potential scenarios for our future. Additionally, humans are able to contemplate deeply on our potential prospects.26
Psychologists call this unique human ability prospection; as people, everything we do is driven by our prospects of the future.27 Prospection is based on a teleological view of the world, which views all human action and behavior as driven by goals—whether short term or long term.28
From this view, every human action has a purpose. Another word for purpose is goal. All human-action is goal-driven, even if the goal of the behavior isn’t consciously considered by the individual.
Some questions you could ask yourself are:
There are three levels to understanding a particular event or action:
Level one is the ability to explain what happened. In this case, you could say: he went to school. That’s the what.
Level two is the ability to explain how the behavior happened. In this case, you could say: he got a ride to school.
Level three is being able to explain why the behavior happened. There is always a why for everything someone does. That why is their reason or goal for what they’re doing.
Knowing the why is the deepest and most powerful form of knowledge because the why is always the driver of the what and how. When you understand why the stock market goes up and down, making informed decisions about investing becomes easier. When you understand why someone does what they do, their actions and behaviors make a lot more sense.
There is always a why or goal behind human behavior. There is a purpose or reason for all human activity. The more conscious and clear you are about choosing your purpose and goals, the how begins to take care of itself. Your behavior follows your purpose and goals. Without conscious purpose, the how becomes conflicted and chaotic
All goals or motivations fit within two categories: approach or avoid.29,30 The reason for doing anything is either to approach something you want to happen, or to avoid something you don’t want to happen
In all instances, humans act as we do based on the future we see for ourselves. That may be a future we’re trying to avoid, or a future we’re trying to create. That future may be decades or seconds away.
By our nature as rational, conscious creatures, we cannot help but think of the future. But most people, out of fear, limit their view of the future to a narrow range. Thoughts of tomorrow, a few weeks ahead, perhaps a vague plan for the months to come. We are generally dealing with so many immediate battles that it is hard for us to lift our gaze above the moment. It is a law of power, however, that the further and deeper we contemplate the future, the greater our capacity to shape it to our desires.32
In addition to fear being a core emotional driver of human action, some psychologists believe human beings have not evolved to effectively think years or decades into the future
We have a lot of things working against us when it comes to living effectively. Shifting our goals from fear-based, reactive, and short term to proactive, long term, and love-based is the path to a successful and happy life. Your view of your Future Self is the compass that draws you forward.
As the science on prospection and Future Self continues to grow and become increasingly compelling, Future Self coaching and meditation programs are in development.
Yet, there has never been a definitive book written on the topic until now
In this highly practical book, you’ll learn:
the science of your Future Self
how to connect with and create your desired Future Self
how to expand your Future Self far, far beyond what you currently imagine, just as MrBeast instinctively did
The quality of connection you have with your own Future Self determines the quality of your life and behaviors now. Research shows that the more connected you are to your own Future Self, the wiser decisions you make here and now. Contemplating your Future Self, you’re more likely to invest in and set yourself up for an abundant retirement, exercise and eat healthier, and you’re less likely to engage in delinquent or self-defeating acts.
The Future Self concept is simple yet rarely practiced
When you’re disconnected with your Future Self, you get caught up in urgent goals that often result in low-quality behavior in the present. For the majority, this is the norm.
Because we’re disconnected from our Future Selves, we opt for near immediate goals or dopamine hits. This short-term seeking ends up costing our Future Selves big.53 As Harvard psychologist and Future Self researcher, Dr. Daniel Gilbert, asked, “Why do we make decisions our Future Selves will regret?”
This brings up a counterintuitive but important truth—the more connected you are to your Future Self, the better you live in the present.
Being connected to your Future Self makes you happy, productive, and successful.
That’s the crazy part. Connection to your Future Self elevates your present self and circumstances. You truly prize the invaluable goldmine that is your life right now. Your connection to your future is how you live powerfully now
BE YOUR FUTURE SELF NOW
Being connected allows you to better comprehend and appreciate the goldmine of this moment, right here. Seeing your current life through the eyes of your Future Self, you see opportunities you were previously blind to. If you stay connected with your Future Self, you’ll value your present.
What about you? If your Future Self—20 years from now—had a conversation with you, what would they say?
How would your Future Self view your current situation?
How differently would you act with your Future Self in mind?
THE PROMISE OF THIS BOOK
In the pages that follow, you’re going to learn how to be your Future Self now. As your Future Self now, you can create the life you want
Author and philosopher, Dr. Stephen R. Covey, said, “Mental creation always precedes physical creation.”59 Anyone who has created something substantial did so by seeing it in their mind first, then working toward the image. As they took steps forward, their vision clarified, expanded, and evolved.
The challenge is to hone the future we envision for ourselves. We’re being driven by our views of the future.
Why that particular future, the one you’re currently committed to?
What if you chose something else?
What if you committed to what you truly want?
When you commit 100 percent to what you want and know the end result is already yours, there will be a growing body of evidence about the future you’re creating. You’ll stop associating pain with the work and changes required for your goals. Instead, you’ll associate pain with not making progress toward your dreams. You’ll associate pain with the short-term dopamine hits that were once your escape.
You’ll be far more courageous.
You’ll develop mentorships and collaborations with like-minded people.
Your mindset, beliefs, and mental models will change and you’ll see the world far differently than your former self.
Part 1 of this book breaks down the seven biggest threats to your Future Self.
Part 2 of this book teaches you the seven most powerful truths about your Future Self.
Part 3 of this book gives you the seven specific steps to imagine, define, and be your Future Self now.
This is the most straight-forward and science-based guide on living powerfully in the present by creating the future you want.
PART 1 - 7 THREATS TO YOUR FUTURE SELF
Threat #1: Without hope in your future, your present loses meaning
Threat #2: A reactive narrative about your past stunts your future
Threat #3: Being unaware of your environment creates a random evolution
Threat #4: Being disconnected from your Future Self leads to myopic decisions
Threat #5: Urgent battles and small goals keep you stuck
Threat #6: Not being in the arena is failing by default
Threat #7: Success is often the catalyst for failure
“Hope is an essential part of the human condition. Without hope, we wither and perish.” —Seth Godin
In Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl shared Friedrich Nietzsche’s words, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how”
From Frankl’s perspective, a clear future is essential in all circumstances and critical in trauma. The most fundamental threat to a person’s Future Self is not the loss of freedom but the absence of purpose and meaning.
Frankl’s story provides a startling illustration of how serious these threats can be. Lose the purpose for your future and you die in the present
THREAT # 1
WITHOUT HOPE IN YOUR FUTURE, YOUR PRESENT LOSES MEANING”
“Your vision of where or who you want to be is the greatest asset you have. Without having a goal it’s difficult to score.” —Paul Arden4
While in the camps, Frankl could predict with extreme accuracy when a fellow inmate would die.
Once purpose was extinguished in a fellow prisoner, Frankl watched as the glow of life left their eyes. No longer willing to share their small piece of daily bread, they disconnected from others, impulsively seeking short-term dopamine to numb themselves from the pain of the moment. The loss of purpose led to the death of the body.
In Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl wrote:
The prisoner who had lost faith in the future—his future—was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay
While a lack of purpose shortens life, having purpose can prolong and sustain life far beyond seemingly natural life expectancy
Why go to school or take classes if there is no end result? Why work out or challenge yourself if there is no diploma? Why make an emotional connection with another person if there is no relationship?
Why do anything at all?
The present is meaningless unless connected to the future. It is the future that dictates which decisions you opt for.
To the average person, hope may seem like mere wishing. But think for a minute what your life would be like without hope in the future. Without something specific to look and build toward, the present becomes utterly painful. In this frenetic nightmare, you feel there is no control or escape from a downward spiral. Without hope, motivation is impossible. You can’t be motivated toward action or outcome with zero hope in its possibility.
Researchers describe hope as the will and the way.9 Hope is the will because conscious choosing is involved. You decide a specific end, which you feel is worthwhile and important to create, pursue, or realize. You believe you have agency, and that your decisions matter, and that you can influence the outcomes of your life.
Hope is the way because to have hope, you either see a way to realize your goal, or are flexible enough to create a way. When hope exists, there is always a way. Hope does not consider the odds
Hope is:
a clear and specific goal
Hope is more powerful than optimism, which is a general sense that the future will be better. Having a glimmer of hope is akin to having a deposit already banked and earning interest on your future purpose.
But there is a much higher bar of hope. This degree requires commitment. It requires agency. It requires action.
Dr. Angela Duckworth distilled an explanation of human maturity. According to her research, people get grittier as they age. To be gritty, you’ve got to stick with something for a long time, overcoming setbacks and obstacles along the way. Someone who switches from goal to goal to goal cannot gain that vital grit. An athlete who switches from one sport to the other isn’t gritty. Grit is sticking to one thing for years or even decades.
The second aspect of grit and maturity is just as important. Maturity comes by committing to a specific long-term goal, and regularly switching out or upgrading pathways or systems to realize the overarching goal
The first and most fundamental threat to your Future Self is not having hope in your future.
Without hope, the present loses meaning.
Without hope, you don’t have clear goals or a sense of purpose for your life.
Without hope, there is no way.
Without hope, you decay
THREAT # 2
A REACTIVE NARRATIVE ABOUT YOUR PAST STUNTS YOUR FUTURE
“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
—Mike Tyson
When you frame the past negatively, your goals become reactive to and based on your past. Your goals become short term and avoidance-oriented, where you try escaping the pain of the present.
When reactive, life happens to you, rather than for you. When reactive, you feel the victim to what life has done to you.
Emotional health happens when you contain both a positive past and an exciting future. Having a positive past depends very little on what events actually occurred. What happened to you doesn’t matter as much as what story you decide to tell yourself about what happened. What happened to you doesn’t matter as much as what emotions you feel about what happened.
Your past is fundamentally a meaning. The story you create about past events dictates what your past means to your present and to your Future Self.
We get to choose what story we attach
To have a bigger future, have a better past.
You can reframe and reshape your past narrative over and over. As you become more mature, you’ll look on even your hardest moments with awe and joy. You’ll love those moments for what they continue to teach you, and for the meaning they’ve given your life
Yes, life is hard. Pain is part of the process. Every single person—regardless of their socioeconomic status, race, or any other factor—will experience enormous amounts of emotional pain in their life. Disappointments. Dashed dreams. Unrealized expectations. Something truly horrendous. Or the harsh words and criticism too easily uttered. The trauma of our own mistakes.
How we handle pain and confusion largely dictates who our Future Self becomes. If you allow the pain of life to swallow you, then your primary goals become to numb yourself through addictions and distractions because you’re unwilling to face and transform those emotions.
Your pain can fuel your purpose and lead you to help others. This is what psychologists call post-traumatic growth, and it occurs as people proactively face pain and choose to view it with gratitude and appreciation.21 You have the power to choose the framing of any experience, and your narration of it, as a positive
Can you feel genuinely glad you went through your hardest moments? Without those, you wouldn’t know what you now know or be who you are. Strategic Coach co-founder Dan Sullivan and I wrote an entire book on this subject called The Gap and the Gain.22 The gap is when you measure yourself or your experiences against what you ideally thought they should be
When you go through something terrible, and you frame the experience in the gap, then life is happening to you, and you’re the byproduct of your experiences. You’re the powerless victim of what happened. The gap leads to unhealthy comparisons and a lack of learning from your experiences.
The gain happens when you transform every experience into personal growth. No matter what occurs, frame the experience as a gain. Proactively and consciously learn from your experiences, and become better, not bitter, as a result
When you’re in the gain, you are more informed than your former self. You have greater perspective, purpose, and empathy. Your Future Self is better equipped because of your past
Your past is a meaning.
Your past is a story.
How you frame that story will largely impact your Future Self.
THREAT # 3
BEING UNAWARE OF YOUR ENVIRONMENT CREATES A RANDOM EVOLUTION”
“You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
—Jim Rohn
As the Wharton marketing professor Dr. Jonah Berger explains in his book Invisible Influence, “Just like atoms bouncing off each other, our social interactions are constantly shaping who we are and what we do.”
This is true of your peer group. The proximity effect predicts that you’re more likely to be friends with the person who sits next to you in class than the person who sits two rows ahead.
Do you want better and bigger goals? A better Future Self? Expose yourself to better perspectives and evolved people.
Is your life the product of conscious choosing, or are you merely reacting to your environment? Are your surroundings governing you, or do you influence your environment? Performance psychologist Dr. Marshall Goldsmith explained in his book Triggers, “If we do not create and control our environment, our environment creates and controls us.”
We live in a social media world designed to subconsciously influence and direct people’s behaviors, desires, identities, and interests. Cultivating awareness of the impact of your external environment on your internal goals allows you to be mindful of when you’re triggered in a certain direction, and consciously choose to realign with your Future Self. As Viktor Frankl put it:
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
You’ll be able to design your environment to become who you want to be. For instance, if you want to become an entrepreneur, surround yourself with successful entrepreneurs, not aspiring ones. To become healthy, surround yourself with people who are fit. If you want to be wealthy, go where abundance is the norm. Become the average of the people you surround yourself with
Even Dr. Angela Duckworth, whose research focuses on grit—a fairly individualistic attribute—concedes that grit is much easier to develop and utilize in environments where high performance is the expected norm.37 Becoming your desired Future Self involves aligning yourself with people who can help you get there.
To align yourself with specific people, you’ll want to be transformational and not transactional in your mindset
In transformational relationships, there is no keeping score. There’s a genuine desire to help and support each other. The purpose and approach of the relationship is transformation, which focuses on giving, gratitude, and growth.
Rather than obsessing on “what’s in it for me?” you ask, “what’s in it for them?” You start the relationship by helping the other person better achieve their own goals.
Transformational relationships can take you places you never expected to go. Your Future Self can become unpredictably better and bigger. Transactional relationships can only take you so far. Your Future Self becomes greatly limited.
Being mindful enables your environment to be the result of your conscious choosing.
Choose well
THREAT # 4
BEING DISCONNECTED FROM YOUR FUTURE SELF LEADS TO MYOPIC DECISIONS
As a species, we haven’t evolved to plan 20 years into the future. As a rule, our decision-making is myopic, shortsighted, and lacks imagination. We’re heavily incentivized to seek rewards in the present, which can greatly cost our long-term Future Selves.
According to Dr. Hal Hershfield, a UCLA psychologist who has invested 15 years studying the Future Self concept, the first step to farsighted decision-making is being connected to your Future Self. Connection starts with having empathy for your Future Self, just as you’d have empathy for another person.39 To have empathy, you consider the other person’s perspectives. You try to understand where they are coming from, and what matters to them.
Importantly, building a connection to your Future Self requires seeing your Future Self as a different person from who you are today.
Another step of empathy is appreciating how your actions, or inactions, impact the other person. In this case, how are your current behaviors impacting your Future Self? The more conscious you become of how everything you do right now impacts the person you are in the future, the better and more thoughtful your actions will be.
When you truly care about another person, you aren’t put-off by making sacrifices of your time, energy, and resources for them. You’ll sacrifice spending money now so your Future Self can have more money later. You’ll sacrifice momentary gratifications to invest in education, health, and relationships
Moving from liking to loving your Future Self is the difference between sacrificing for someone and investing. When I truly care about something or someone, I happily invest in that thing or relationship.
If I care about piano, I’ll invest more to learn to play.
If I care about someone, I’ll invest in the growth of that relationship.
If I care about me, I invest in myself so I can continually upgrade my thinking, opportunities, and skills. When I care about my Future Self, I happily invest in their well-being, situation, freedoms, and characteristics.
Whenever you engage in long-term reward behaviors where the benefits continue long into the future, you’re investing in your Future Self
The more you invest in long-term rewards, the clearer your Future Self becomes. This creates what Hershfield calls vividness, an extremely advanced form of connection with your Future Self. The more vivid and detailed your Future Self, the more direct can be your process to get there
You will not be able to proactively create the life you want if you’re not connected to your Future Self.
You won’t be able to think and strategize long term.
You’ll be caught up by endless distractions throughout your day.
Your decisions will be myopic.
You’ll cost your Future Self greatly, putting them deeper in debt in all ways.
THREAT # 5
URGENT BATTLES AND SMALL GOALS KEEP YOU STUCK
The reason they’re living day-to-day is because their goals are day-to-day. Get to work. Get to lunch. Get to the end of the day. Get to the weekend. Pay the bills. The future many pursue is only a step ahead and we feel like the system is designed to keep people stuck in this survival-mode way of living.
If you’re living day-to-day, you’re always in a hurry.
When you’re engaged in short-term goals, your time spirals quicker and quicker. Like a hamster on a wheel, you’re living lots of years and expending lots of energy, but not making progress.
To exit the rat race of day-to-day mindset requires a shift in your focus. Connect to a bigger future. If you get serious, and started investing and learning, where could you be in five years?
Business strategist Dr. Stephen Covey used rocks, pebbles, and a bucket to teach time management. In the activity, he filled the bucket with the small pebbles and then added the medium and large rocks. However, with the small pebbles taking up the bottom half of the bucket, the medium and large rocks couldn’t all fit.
He emptied the bucket and started over, this time putting in the medium and large rocks first, and pouring the pebbles into the gaps around the larger rocks. By “putting first things first,” like magic, everything else fits in the same space. Putting the pebbles in first is majoring in minor things.
Covey said the bucket symbolizes our time. The medium and large rocks represent important activities such as relationships, planning, learning, and health. The pebbles represent urgent activities such as checking email and going to meetings.
When we put the urgent before the important, we never get to the important
Lift your gaze and begin connecting with your longer term Future Self.
Develop goals that are five years out, and prioritize those big goals before the urgent daily battles.
Thinking far too short term and urgent in your goals, and way too small about your future. This is a formula to exhaust extreme effort but stay in the same place.
What opportunities are you missing simply because you’re so focused on your urgent and small goals?43,44 Suffering from inattentional blindness, people are so busy looking for bronze coins that they can’t see the gold coins all around them
The problem for you and me is we don’t see these opportunities. To see the world differently, ask different questions.
Rather than ask, “How can I make $100,000 this year?” ask, “How can I make $10,000,000 this year?”
Different questions spark innovative thinking and new angles. Psychologist and spiritual teacher Dr. Wayne Dyer said, “When you change the way you see things, the things you see change.”45 When you change what you’re looking for, you change what you see
THREAT # 6
NOT BEING IN THE ARENA IS FAILING BY DEFAULT
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
—Theodore Roosevelt”
Outside the arena may feel safe, but it’s the most dangerous place you could be. While outside, you remain ignorant of your own ignorance. You may be an armchair philosopher on whatever subject you’re interested in, but you’re not becoming a pro. Staying on the sidelines leads to a life of regrets
When you’re on the sidelines, you can enjoy theorizing and armchair quarterbacking. There are no real risks or consequences. Once you’re in the arena, and dealing with the realities of the situation, then you can engage in applied learning where you get filtered information you can use right now. As a new foster parent, I remember the sleepless nights, dealing with our children’s emotional challenges. Who could blame them? They’d been taken away from their parents and were living with strangers. Every day, it felt like I was failing. Seven years later, I can still feel like all I’m doing is failing as a father.
But I’m in the arena.
I’m learning.
Spectators are caught in paralysis by analysis, fear, and decision fatigue. The longer you wait to enter your arena, the more you limit your Future Self.
THREAT # 7
SUCCESS IS OFTEN THE CATALYST FOR FAILURE
“The second-richest man in America, Warren Buffett, says one of his biggest challenges is to help his top people—all wealthy beyond belief—stay interested enough to jump out of bed in the morning and work with all the enthusiasm they did when they were poor and just getting started . . . Success Disease makes people begin to forego to different degrees the effort, focus, discipline, teaching, teamwork, learning, and attention to detail that brought ‘mastery’ and its progeny, success.”
“Bill Walsh
Success is difficult to handle. Most people self-destruct once things start getting good
If you’ve never had a lot of money and you start making good money, you may subconsciously do something stupid to flush all that new money down the drain.
As your focus and long-term vision are squeezed out by short-term wins, the original singular goal becomes muddled and distracted. Flow and focus drown if you can’t manage and filter complexity
Becoming successful at what you do is far less difficult than maintaining and expanding that success. In the field of sports, teams that reach the top rarely repeat as champions. Complacent because they’ve achieved their goal, their focus shifts. Success brings opportunity and distraction, and players stop putting in the focused work and deliberate practice needed to be at the top.
When things are going well, it’s also easy to get soft and lazy. You stop the disciplines that got you where you’re at
Success can be hard to handle for individuals, teams, organizations, and nations. Becoming successful is one thing, but expanding that success is something entirely different. You may even get lax as things start getting good.
Why should this matter to you?
If you get clear on your Future Self, and invest specifically toward your Future Self, you will become incredibly successful. You’ll experience the compound effect in knowledge, skills, money, and relationships. But with this increase in success, you will face surprising complexity.
To guard against collapse requires clarifying your Future Self at each succeeding stage
CONCLUSION
FUTURE SELF THREATS
Your Future Self is not set in stone.
There are an infinite number of directions your life can go.
Your Future Self is inevitable.
In 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, or 20, baring fatality, you will become someone. The question to ask yourself is: Who will your Future Self be? That is, perhaps, the most important question any human can ask themself.
Next, we dive into the seven core truths about your Future Self. As you fully grasp the truths of your Future Self, you’ll be equipped to dictate who your Future Self becomes. You’ll have the power to create a life beyond anything you currently imagine.
PART 2 - 7 TRUTHS ABOUT YOUR FUTURE SELF
Truth #1: Your future drives your present
Truth #2: Your Future Self is different than you expect
Truth #3: Your Future Self is the Pied Piper
Truth #4: The more vivid and detailed your Future Self, the faster you’ll progress
Truth #5: Failing as your Future Self is better than succeeding as your current self
Truth #6: Success is achieved by being true to your Future Self, nothing else
“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.”
—Viktor Frankl
There are Seven Truths about your Future Self.
We all have a future ahead of us. In 10 years, 20 years, and more, we will become our Future Selves.
The question is: Who will your Future Self be?
What life will you live?
What will you commit yourself to?
We all change. Life events change us.
Aging changes us.
Learning, relationships, experience, success, and failure changes us.
As you learn these seven core truths, you’ll be equipped to handle the changes you’ll experience in life. You’ll also have the skills to choose and create proactive change for yourself and others
TRUTH # 1
YOUR FUTURE DRIVES YOUR PRESENT
“It is absurd to suppose that purpose is not present because we do not observe the agent deliberating.”
—Aristotle
For Aristotle, all intelligent human action is intentional, and based on sought after causes or ends. We can envision and choose goals, and direct our behavior at our goals. Indeed, our goals are the cause of what we do.
Do you randomly hammer wood together and hope a house appears, or is there intelligent design? Is a Rolex watch accidental or created? How does someone finish college, build a business, write a book, or ride a bike? Is it by design or random chance?
Isn’t the goal what determines the process?
Doesn’t mental creation precede physical creation, to use Covey’s language?
How could you assemble a rocket and fly to the moon without wanting to do so?
Every human creation you see is the byproduct of intelligent design. Someone had an idea for creating something, and turned their idea into a physical form. This process is trial and error, but driven by a goal.
Creativity occurs by giving form or organization to disorganized raw materials. For example, a table isn’t built out of nothing but organized from raw materials that were previously disorganized or undesigned
This brings up a fundamental question you and I must answer for ourselves, and that is, do you believe life is random or can it be designed? Do you believe your behavior and situation are random, or influenced and shaped?
You can expect the future to take a definite form or you can treat it as hazily uncertain. If you treat your future as something definite, it makes sense to understand it in advance and to work to shape it. But if you expect an indefinite future ruled by randomness, you will give up trying to master it.
Behavior becomes more intelligent as it is intentionally designed for ends.
Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” If you completely ignore your results, and continue doing your process, how can you know your process works? You couldn’t.
Even flow, which by all accounts is a total absorption in the process, requires clear goals.15 As Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the lead researcher and scholar on flow, has said,
Flow tends to occur when the activity one engages in contains a clear set of goals. These goals serve to add direction and purpose to behavior.
Focus on the goal right in front of you, and do that again and again, knowing these are the critical steps to the overarching goal of winning the game, and then the championship.
The core truth of humanity is that all human behavior is driven by goals. To Frankl, this was the ultimate and eternal truth. As he stated, “It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future-sub specie aeternitatis. And this is his salvation in the most difficult moments of his existence.”
Human beings are intelligent to the extent they are intentional, conscious, and honest about the goals that are driving them.
TRUTH # 2
YOUR FUTURE SELF IS DIFFERENT THAN YOU EXPECT
“Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished. The person you are right now is as transient, as fleeting and as temporary as all the people you’ve ever been.”
—Dr. Daniel Gilbert
People tend to assume that who they are right now is, for the most part, the finished version. We feel like who we are now is who we truly are, and who we’ll mostly be. We might change a little, but not much. Our current self is the real us.
Psychologists call this the end-of-history illusion. It’s the belief that you’ve substantially changed in the past, but likely won’t change much in the future. It is common to assume that your Future Self will mostly be the same person as you are today. Gilbert explained a core reason for this is likely due to “the ease of remembering and the difficulty of imagining.
Another term for the belief that your current and Future Self are essentially the same person is what esteemed psychologist Dr. Carol Dweck called the fixed mindset.25 According to Dweck:
In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them
People with a fixed mindset overemphasize and overly define their current selves, believing who they are now is their core self. Unchangeable and innate, their inner dialogue states, “This is who I am and who I’m always going to be.
Dr. Gilbert’s research helps us realize that our Future Self will be far different than we expect, even without conscious effort on our part.
Your Future Self is a totally different person than you are today.
They see the world differently.
They have different goals and concerns than you now have.
They have a different situation.
They have different habits.
They even have a different way of looking at the world.
They’ve been through experiences and learned things you simply can’t comprehend.
It is not only accurate to see your Future Self as a different person, it’s crucial to living effectively.
When you see your Future Self as a different person, you don’t get stuck or dogmatic in your current way of thinking. You love your current self, and appreciate how temporary your current perspectives, attributes, and situation are.
Your current self is temporary. This refreshing truth enables a growth mindset, where you’re more interested in learning and growing than trying to prove yourself. It creates a flexible identity, where you actively update and alter your perspectives, and continually upgrade how you think, what you measure, and what you value.
The promise of change empowers you to give grace to your current self. You can make mistakes. It’s okay that you don’t have all the answers. It’s okay if you’re a bit disorganized and camped in the messy middle. Things will change. If you’re committed to a certain change or outcome, then you will figure it out
Albert Einstein correctly said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”26 When you appreciate that your Future Self will be a totally different person than you are today, then you free yourself of needing to be perfect or finished now.
Your current self is radically temporary and fleeting.
You’ll even be different tomorrow.
Let this truth free you. Enhance the compassion, empathy, and love you have for your current self, as well as your former and Future Self
TRUTH # 3
YOUR FUTURE SELF IS THE PIED PIPER
“Time will be your friend or your enemy; it will promote you or expose you.”
—Jeff Olson
Everything you do has a consequence for better or worse. Everything you do has a compounding consequence. Your Future Self is the exaggerated result of your current decisions.
Every time you invest in your Future Self, you’ve not only paid them, but you’ve invested in them. By investing in your Future Self, your Future Self continually gets bigger and better.
The more you put your Future Self in debt in terms of health, learning, finances, and time, the more painful and costly will be the eventual toll. There will be a lot of interest to pay if you continually accrue debt.
Everything you do can be categorized as either a cost to or an investment in your Future Self.
Costing your Future Self means you’re more focused on present or short-term rewards over long-term consequences. Costing your Future Self means you’re consuming far more than you’re creating.
An investment toward your Future Self is any conscious action you’re making toward chosen goals. Every time you consciously invest in something specific, whether learning, health, relationships, or experiences, your Future Self grows more capable, free, and mature.
Every investment compounds over time, making your Future Self wealthier. The earlier you invest, the more your Future Self compounds.
Albert Einstein is attributed with saying:
Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it . . . he who doesn’t . . . pays it.
Small investments lead to bigger investments.
The more you invest, the more those investments compound.
Investing gets you committed.
Investing gets you results.
Investing is how you proactively upgrade your vision and goals. As you invest in yourself, you increase your commitment to a bigger vision. This change in commitment simultaneously alters your identity, since your identity is what you’re most committed to.
By getting invested, he got committed. Then, his identity changed. From there, he took up that leadership role with far more elevated and bold behavior, which led to his success.
This is how you proactively change and elevate your vision. By upgrading your vision, you change your identity and behavior.
The more you invest, the more committed you’ll be.
The more you invest, the bigger your vision will be.
Invest your time, your money, and your talents.
Investing is how you shatter the glass ceiling of your current potential and elevate your sense of what you can be and do. This profound behavior signals to your subconscious that you can have and be much more than your current identity.32 As Dr. David Hawkins stated, “The unconscious will only allow us to have what we believe we deserve.”
TRUTH # 4
THE MORE VIVID AND DETAILED YOUR FUTURE SELF, THE FASTER YOU’LL PROGRESS
“What preoccupies us is the way we define success.”
—Arianna Huffington
“You see whatever it is you’re measuring.”
—Seth Godin
Effective progress comes with a combination of measurable metrics, a vivid vision of your Future Self, and clear mile markers. Without these elements, people wander.
Without clarity of where straight is, you’ll wander in circles despite thinking you’re making progress forward. Without a clear goal for yourself, and tangible mile markers along the way, you’ll wander in circles.
Pablo Picasso said, “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
The more detailed your Future Self, the better. The more measurable and specific your goals and milestones, the more effective will be your process and progress.
TRUTH # 5
FAILING AS YOUR FUTURE SELF IS BETTER THAN SUCCEEDING AS YOUR CURRENT SELF
“In time with years of creative training and a willingness to invest in loss, to take blow after blow and get blasted off the pedestals as a way of life, the game starts to slow down. You see attacks coming in slow motion and play refutational maneuvers in the blink of an eye.”
—Josh Waizkin
For Josh, “investment in loss” is “giving yourself to the learning process.” This means putting yourself in difficult situations that force you to adapt. Facing your weaknesses. And sometimes, literally, using Josh’s words, getting “thrown around.”
For Josh, “investing in loss” was an extreme form of deliberate practice. According to Dr. Anders Ericsson, the lead researcher on deliberate practice and expert performance, deliberate practice is meant to counter our natural inclination to develop habits or “automaticity,” which is the ability to perform a task without conscious effort.
Deliberate practice is the opposite of “habits” or “automaticity.” Your habits are you on autopilot. Deliberate practice requires conscious effort and attention toward specific and challenging goals. Habits are your current self; deliberate practice is focused striving toward your desired Future Self. Reverting to habits or your comfort zone isn’t how you advance.
To fully engage in deliberate practice is to have an increasingly clear picture of your desired Future Self.
Being connected with his Future Self is what enables Josh to continually invest in loss. He’s connected to a much more evolved version of himself. He’s committed to his Future Self more than his current comfort. He’s aggressive about becoming his Future Self.
Commitment to Future Self means investing in loss or failure here and now to accelerate progress. The more willing you are to invest in momentary loss and pain directed at a goal, the faster you’ll adapt to the level of your Future Self.
It’s your choice how deep you’ll go into the arena.
It’s your choice the extent to which you’ll invest in loss and learning.
People naturally avoid investing in loss. It’s comfortable doing something you can already do. Winning feels good. But if you want to aggressively become your Future Self, then investing in loss is how you get there.
TRUTH # 6
SUCCESS IS ACHIEVED BY BEING TRUE TO YOUR FUTURE SELF, NOTHING ELSE
Shadow Career is the term used to describe people who go on an alternative path from their true dream because they’ve given up on themselves. To requote Robert Brault, “We are kept from our goals not by obstacles, but by a clear path to a lesser goal.
Philosopher, entrepreneur, world traveler, and writer Derek Sivers champions strong beliefs about what it means to be successful. He believes that it doesn’t matter how accomplished you may be, you cannot be considered “a success” unless you are true to what you genuinely want or believe
The person living a quiet simple life, that doesn’t have fame, money, prestige, or any of the things we often consider as success. If that person is living the life they truly want to live, then they are absolutely successful.
External factors are absolutely not what determines if a person is successful or not. Only that a person lives in alignment with their own aims
TRUTH # 7
YOUR VIEW OF GOD IMPACTS YOUR FUTURE SELF
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.”
—AMarianne Williamson
Let me get this out of the way from the beginning. In this section, I’m not in any way attempting to convince you whether or not you should believe in God. That choice is fundamentally yours alone.
Instead, the purpose of this section is to highlight how whatever views, or lack of views, you have of God will directly impact your views of your own Future Self.
Some perspectives of God leave you with an unclear sense of purpose and a restricted view of your own destiny
Other perspectives of God are intensely liberating in respect to your Future Self
There are countless views of God and God’s relation to humanity
For instance, a common view is that God controls and determines all things, including all human actions and outcomes
This perspective creates what psychologists call an external locus of control, where you believe you have no agency or impact on what happens in your life
Each person should be fully respected in what they choose to believe about God, about life, and about themselves. We are all extremely ignorant and limited in our current perspectives, and our Future Selves will see things from a more elevated state
CONCLUSION
FUTURE SELF TRUTHS
In this section of the book, we’ve covered the seven core truths about your Future Self. These truths, if understood, will enable you to realize a much bolder and more powerful Future Self. You’ll be freed from the fixed mindset of being stuck as your current self.
Next, we dive into the seven steps to be your Future Self now. As you apply these steps, you’ll be able to clarify and prioritize your Future Self, and eliminate anything less.
PART 3 - 7 STEPS FOR BEING YOUR FUTURE SELF”
Step #1: Clarify your contextual purpose
Step #2: Eliminate lesser goals
Step #3: Elevate from needing to wanting to knowing
Step #4: Ask for exactly what you want
Step #5: Automate and systemize your Future Self
Step #6: Schedule your Future Self
“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
—Steve Jobs
As with all learning, the process can feel messy and some moments will be dark.
Your Future Self will guide you.
Your Future Self will be compassionate toward your mistakes along the way. Certainly, they have a far more elevated and wiser perspective than you and I have now.
With the threats and truths behind you, you’re ready for the concrete steps to be your Future Self now.
There’s no more time to wait.
Your Future Self is ready for you.
STEP # 1
CLARIFY YOUR CONTEXTUAL PURPOSE
“The height of sophistication is simplicity.”
—Clare Boothe Luce
Given your current context, what is the absolute most important thing you could achieve or realize right now?
What is the next level that would be utterly amazing to achieve?
Clarifying your contextual purpose involves three key items:
Connecting with your long-term Future Self is essential to quality decisions in the present. The further out you imagine and connect, the more informed and strategic you can be. Of course, your Future Self will adapt and change, but that does not discount the importance of being connected
After connecting to your long-term Future Self, the next step is to clarify the most important objective you could accomplish now. This is your contextual purpose.
You define your contextual purpose through a refined set of objectives. These priorities are what you believe are absolutely most important to you and your Future Self.
The challenge most people face is that they don’t have clear priorities.
As Collins stated:
If you have more than three priorities, you don’t have any
Your life is like a garden. If you’re not intentional, your garden will be overrun with weeds and randomness. This occurs if you have too many competing goals and priorities.
Growing your Future Self requires investing in your Future Self. Investing in your Future Self is akin to planting and nourishing seeds that eventually bear fruit. To determine which seeds to plant, first determine which fruit or outcomes you want for your Future Self
If you want to eat salsa in your future, focus your garden on tomatoes, peppers, onions, and cilantro. Skip the sweet potatoes.
It’s key to ask: What are you optimizing for?
Who do you want your Future Self to be?
What few areas do you want to prioritize and invest big in so you can create 10X compounding results? What seeds or investments do you want to plant that will yield the greatest return?
For instance, if you really want your Future Self to be far healthier, then wellness is an area of focus and major investment. If you want your Future Self to have an abundance of passive-income generating assets, then finance is a core priority.
Only you can decide what you want to optimize for your Future Self.
Only you can determine what specific seeds to plant, and what you want your life to look like.
The second key to clarify your Future Self is defining your purpose with three clear priorities.
What three priorities, if realized, would take your life to a totally different level? These are the three areas of focus you want to dramatically invest in to create 10X compounding results. These priorities are the most important areas of focus at this particular point in time. In the future, you will likely have different priorities.
These are the areas I want to optimize for my Future Self. This is the fruit I want my Future Self to experience. These are the areas I’m going to make massive and focused investments in to assure these specific areas grow and compound massively.
I shared my priorities simply to give an example. The specifics of my current priorities and focus are not what matters
The question for you to answer is: What is your current purpose?
Who is your Future Self at your next level?
Can you give your Future Self context and make your vision vivid, detailed, and personal to you?
What three priorities of focus are absolutely most crucial and essential for you right now? Do your three priorities embody the purpose you feel is most important for you to fulfill? Do these three priorities resonate deeply and excite you?
Once you’ve clarified your three core priorities, set specific goals for each of those priorities over the next 12 months.
Rank in order those goals in terms of which are the absolute most important. Which of your 12-month goals, if achieved, would make the biggest long-term impact for your Future Self?
Once you’ve rank-ordered your top three 12-month goals, ask yourself which of these could I potentially 10X in the next 12 months?
The goal determines the process.
STEP # 2
ELIMINATE LESSER GOALS
“We are kept from our goal not by obstacles, but by a clear path to a lesser goal.”
—Robert Brault
A strategy he used for reaching his goals was imagining his Future Self as a distant mountain he walked toward. Every time he was presented an opportunity, he asked himself, “Does this take me closer to or further from the mountain?”
If you say you’re committed to having an amazing retirement, but consistently spend away your paycheck, then you’re committed to spending, not investing.
If you say you’re committed to starting a side hustle, but your spare time is spent on social media or with friends, then you’re committed to social media and friends, not your side hustle.
When Neil said, “no” to the editorial jobs, he proved his commitment to the mountain.
Your behavior reflects what you see as your Future Self. Your behavior reflects your commitment, and therefore, your results reflect your commitment
Once you’ve clarified a specific goal, you have to ask yourself: Am I committed enough to uncommit to what I currently have?
If you truly are committed to something new and better, you’ll stop much of what you’re currently doing.
That lesser goal could be an infinite number of things from checking email or social media to eating that dessert. It could be continuing your day job when you know you want something different.
Anything that isn’t taking you toward your Future Self is a lesser goal.
Lesser goals are weeds in the garden of life. Every time you engage in a lesser goal, it’s the equivalent of planting a weed in your garden. Whatever you plant will produce your results.
What is your garden producing? Is your garden optimized for your Future Self? Or is it totally chaotic and full of weeds?
If you’re going to realize your purpose, then Step #2 to being your Future Self is uncommitting to lesser goals. These lesser goals are structural aspects of your current life, and the moment-by-moment decisions you make throughout your day.
By structural aspects, I mean your current habits, behaviors, and relationships. There are a lot of things you do throughout your day that conflict with your contextual purpose.
What are those lesser goals?
What are the major things in your life that oppose your contextual purpose?
What in your life is outside your three priorities?
What are you still saying “yes” to that your desired Future Self would say “no” to?
What are you continuing to commit to and invest in that is taking you away from where you want to go?
This assessment requires brutal honesty.
Your behavior clearly reflects, in every moment, what you’re committed to. In every instant, you’re presented with the option to live your purpose or submit to some lesser goal.
The French writer and poet Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said,
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
What lesser goals can you immediately eliminate?
Each day, and in each moment, you’ll face goal conflicts. What will you do as those moments arise?
Your behavior demonstrates what you’re truly committed to.
STEP # 3
ELEVATE FROM NEEDING TO WANTING TO KNOWING
“Do or not do. There is no try.”
—Yoda
Dr. David Hawkins created what is known as the map of consciousness.9 This map reflects levels of emotional development ranging from the lower levels of shame, fear, and anger to the higher levels of courage, acceptance, love, and enlightenment.
The higher you progress on Hawkins’s map, the easier it is to create the life you want. The lower you are on the map, the more friction, resistance, and pain will be in your life. Progressing through the levels is the process of evolving from needing to wanting to knowing.
When you think you need something, you have an unhealthy attachment to it. Needing implies you are in a deep state of lack and can’t be whole or happy until the need is filled.
A primary reason people don’t get what they want is because they don’t feel worthy to have it. They can visualize their desired goal mentally, but emotionally resist owning the reality.
They don’t believe their Future Self.
They don’t feel abundance can be theirs.
They’re blocked, and resist
Gratitude is powerful when expressed for what has already occurred. It’s also extremely powerful when you express proactive gratitude for what you want in the future. Gratitude elevates from wanting to knowing
Your behavior follows your identity. The scientific definition of identity is “a well-organized conception of the self, consisting of values and beliefs to which the individual is solidly committed.”
Your identity is what you’re most committed to.
As you align your identity with your Future Self, fully accepting the truth of it, then you act as your Future Self. Dr. Stephen Covey said, “To know and not to do is really not to know.”
When you know, you will do.
To know and not do is to not know
Every little action you take toward your Future Self enhances your level of commitment and knowing. Every little action toward your Future Self is the evidence of your faith.
Every little action toward your Future Self is you more fully being your Future Self now.
Knowing and being in advance are key to having. Zig Ziglar stated, “You have to be before you can do, and do before you can have.” This is the reverse of how most people approach their desires, and why few people live the life they want. The common approach is to believe you must have something first, which will enable you to do and ultimately be what you want.
For example, say you want to be an entrepreneur. You might think you first need to have funding, or a brilliant idea, or [fill in the blank], which will enable you to do what you want to do and ultimately be who you want to be.
Believing you must first have something leads people down endless paths of lesser goals that never lead them where they want to go. As an example, I have a friend who would love to retire and do full-time humanitarian service. But he believes he must first have certain credentials, finances, and experiences. Rather than being his Future Self now, he spends decades accumulating qualifiers that he believes will enable him to eventually do and be what he wants
What he doesn’t realize is that he could be his Future Self now. If he started with being, which is knowing, then his doing would come from his Future Self, rather than from his current and limited self
Once you accept the truth of your Future Self, and know it’s already yours, then your actions align with your vision. Your circumstances change immediately. You see what you didn’t previously see. You stop doing what no longer aligns
STEP # 4
ASK FOR EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT”
When you ask, the doors open.
Often, we’re afraid to ask for exactly what we want because we don’t think we can get it. So, we lower what we ask for, and receive at the level of our internal acceptance.
The other thing I’m looking for right now is a ghostwriter to help with the first draft of my next book. This will help me achieve my goals while living out my big three priorities where I focus more on my family. I’ve been telling people I want a ghostwriter, and just this morning, I got an email from someone who’s worked on 30 books, and who also has been a fan of my work for years
It’s almost too easy. You can be the bee who goes out looking for the flowers, or you can be the flower and have the bees come to you.
When you ask directly and clearly for exactly what you want, what you want will come to you. I’m really glad I asked Lauren to go on that first date. I’m glad I kept asking, even when, for a while, she was not interested.
I kept asking, and we finally had a real date.
Then I asked her to marry me.
I remember asking Nate Lambert to be my mentor, and to help him with his papers. I asked Bob Sinclair at Clemson to let me into the Ph.D. program, even though I missed the deadline.
I asked Dan Sullivan if I could write books with him, and we’re now working on our third.
Ask anybody.
Just ask. Don’t be afraid. And don’t be ashamed.
As you get better at clarifying, simplifying, and asking, you’ll receive with increased swiftness
STEP # 5
AUTOMATE AND SYSTEMIZE YOUR FUTURE SELF
“For any challenge, the first thing to do is optimize it. Break it down to its bare minimum, simplify it, and eliminate everything that’s not completely necessary . . . After you’ve optimized a task, the next step is to automate as much as possible. Use software or processes so you can get the task done without human involvement—just set it and forget it. Finally, for anything that’s left, outsource to a generalist or a specialist. It’s important to note that although outsourcing can do a lot for you, it comes after optimizing and automating. If you outsource an inefficient task, that doesn’t really help because it’s still inefficient. It’s much better to eliminate work by optimizing or automating whenever you can and only outsource what’s left.”
—Ari Meisel
Design your system around your Future Self.
System design means you make routines as friction-free and automatic as possible to achieve your goals. Impose friction or barriers where you want to avoid unwanted outcomes. Where can you make one change that creates an ongoing desired effect? For example, removing social media apps from your cell phone makes it easier to avoid mindlessly hopping on and wasting valuable time scrolling.
Designing a system intelligently is possible by first clarifying and simplifying your objectives. As management author and legend Peter Drucker said, “There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all.
Effectiveness is doing the right things, while efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness must always come first, then efficiency. System design is about automating and outsourcing your desired results. Give yourself the space to put your attention and energy where you want. The goal is to off-load your mental and physical plate.
Dan Sullivan and I wrote a book, Who Not How. The premise is that if you want to achieve bigger goals, you’ll need the right “whos” to take care of most of the hows
System design is trial and error, and refinement takes time. In the beginning, Chelsea would bring me opportunities I didn’t want, or schedule appointments that ended up frustrating me. But as I’ve gotten clearer and more committed to my Future Self, we’ve created a better decision filter for what is relevant.
In this continuous process, patience and practice are key.
Being selectively or strategically ignorant is crucial. It’s crucial to become increasingly unaware of what’s going on in the outside world. As author John Maxwell said, “You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.”
Small changes can create nonlinear and non-predictable shifts throughout the system. This is partially why your Future Self will be far different from what you predict. This is also why systems thinking and systems design is so powerful. If you’re unaware, you could allow a virus that, initially small, could spread and take over the system. Conversely, you could alter the system, blocking inputs and designing for others to automate and compound the results you want.
Introducing small changes into your system can have a dramatic effect. Refining your system to automate your desired results and block noise and decision fatigue is essential to flow and high performance.
It’s crucial to note that even the best system will quickly become outdated. As you evolve and grow, your goals and situation will change. As your vision expands and your commitment to better results increases, you’ll improve your system.
STEP # 6
SCHEDULE YOUR FUTURE SELF
“To me, ‘busy’ implies that the person is out of control of their life.”
—Derek Sivers
Your schedule reflects your priorities.
Your schedule reflects what you’re actually committed to.
Most schedules are dominated by urgent battles and lesser goals such as meetings and Zoom calls. Rarely does someone’s schedule reflect and prioritize their Future Self over their current self
In Who Not How, Dan Sullivan and I discuss Dan’s 4 Freedoms:
Your time is the clearest indicator of your commitment. You can’t hide how you spend your time.
To improve freedom of money, relationships, and purpose, own your Freedom of Time.
To have freedom of time, take ownership of your schedule. Prioritize what matters most, and eliminate what does not. The more you take ownership of your time and attention, the simpler and easier to realize your Future Self. If, however, your time is continually overrun with lesser goals and other people’s agendas, then your desired Future Self will be frustrated.
There are two fundamental ways to approach time: Either it’s something outside of you that you cannot control, or it’s something within you that you fully control. In The Big Leap, Dr. Gay Hendricks explains these two models as Newtonian Time versus Einstein Time.
Getting your schedule to reflect your Future Self is a major and important step that very few people fully embrace. It will never be convenient to stop the firehose of lesser goals. They will never stop coming. Most externally successful people still fall into the trap of being managed by time, rather than owning and creating their experience of time.
Every time you choose your Future Self over your current self, there is risk. But being your Future Self now and doing what your Future Self would do immediately creates results beyond anything you’ve done before.
Yes, with deliberate practice comes failure.
Yes, being in the arena can lead to battle scars.
It’s better to fail at the level of your Future Self than succeed as your current self.
How much does your schedule reflect your Future Self?
How much does your schedule reflect your priorities? To repeat Jim Collins, “If you have more than three priorities, you have none.”
Once you’ve clarified your three priorities, it’s time to live them.
Schedule time.
Own your time.
STEP # 7
AGGRESSIVELY COMPLETE IMPERFECT WORK”
8 de septiembre de 2022
“If you’re planning to do something with your life, if you have a 10-year plan of how to get there, you should ask: why can’t you do this in 6 months?”
—Peter Theil
“Ship often. Ship lousy stuff, but ship. Ship constantly. Skip meetings. Often. Skip them with impunity. Ship.”
—Seth Godin
In 2007, Godin published The Dip, an explanation of why being the best in the world is seriously underrated, and how to do it.34 To be the best, you must know when to stick with something and when to quit.
As he said:
Sometimes we get discouraged and turn to inspirational writing, like stuff from Vince Lombardi: “Quitters never win and winners never quit.” Bad advice. Winners quit all the time. They just quit the right stuff at the right time.
Quit your lesser goals.
Quit anything that isn’t taking you closer to the mountain.
Don’t stick with something just because your former self invested in it.
Quit everything that isn’t living as your Future Self.
For Godin, here’s what it means to ship:
The only purpose of starting is to finish, and while the projects we do are never really finished they must ship. Shipping means hitting the publish button on your blog, showing a presentation to the sales team, answering the phone, selling the muffins, sending out your references. Shipping is the collision between your work and the outside world.
Consistently shipping is what enables you to get to your best work. Shipping keeps you going. As Godin continued:
Shipping isn’t focused on producing a masterpiece (but all master-pieces get shipped). I’ve produced more than a hundred books (most didn’t sell very well), but if I hadn’t, I’d never have had the chance to write this one. Picasso painted more than a thousand paintings, and you can probably name three of them.
Your current self is dramatically limited relative to your Future Self.
Let this truth liberate you.
There are two fundamental principles for continuous completion. Apply these principles consistently to invest in loss and make exponential progress toward your Future Self.
“Perfectionism leads to procrastination. “Eighty percent gets results.”
When we put a man on the moon, we didn’t have anything near the technology and science we have now. We innovated until we had the tools to get us on the moon. There’s no way we’d use the same tools now we used back then.
Prolific is better than perfect
The more you make completion a way of life, the more you become your Future Self.
Eighty percent to your current self is beyond anything your former self could ever do.
Eighty percent to your Future Self will be beyond anything your current self could do.
Confidence comes from completion.
Completion requires commitment.
Anyone can start, but few finish. The further you go, the less competition there will be. Most people succumbed to their lesser goals and gave up a long time ago.
Every step you take toward your Future Self puts you in rarer air.
Everything you complete teaches you something you’ll use for the next project.
Become a master of completing and shipping. If you don’t, then your Future Self will be an idea but not a fact
CONCLUSION
FUTURE SELF STEPS
Your Future Self compounds in whatever directions you decide and focus.
The simpler and clearer your Future Self, the more focused you’ll be now.
In this section of the book, we’ve just covered the seven steps to being your Future Self now. These steps will enable you to clarify, prioritize, and be your desired Future Self.
These steps are simple and clear, but take continual work and refinement.
As you apply the steps, your life will quickly change. Every day you’ll live with more intention and commitment. You’ll weed out lesser goals. You’ll have a more definite attitude about your Future Self.
You’ll increasingly know that what you want is yours.
Your system will change, enabling you to create incredible results with increased ease and flow.
Your schedule will change, reflecting your priorities instead of lesser goals.
You’ll become increasingly productive and prolific, creating ever better work
CONCLUSION - BE YOUR FUTURE SELF NOW”
“Freedom lies in being bold.”
—Robert Frost
Know that despite your best predictions, your Future Self will likely be far different than you anticipate. Life will teach you more than you expect. Your Future Self is wiser than your present self can imagine.
With your time capsule in place, be your Future Self now.
Being is the first step of doing.
Do what your Future Self will do.
Know that what you want is already yours.
Commit 100 percent to your desired Future Self.
Remove lesser goals.
Turn every experience along the way into a gain.
Cheers to your Future Self.
Congratulations on the investment you made by reading this book.
Go now, and be your Future Self.
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Digital Transformation Leader, Marketer & Accredited Investor | Building Solutions to Reduce Cost, Increase Market Share & Profitability
1 年Fantastic. Loved it. Thank you for sharing.