YAPClassic: Benjamin Hardy, Achieve Your Goals in 2024

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0:01:21 Yeah, fam, welcome back to the show.
0:01:26 Today we’re pulling one of my interviews with Benjamin Hardy from The Archives.
0:01:27 I love learning from Benjamin Hardy.
0:01:30 I’ve interviewed him on the podcast three times.
0:01:32 Benjamin Hardy is amazing.
0:01:37 He’s an organizational psychologist and the world’s leading expert on psychology and
0:01:39 entrepreneurial leadership and exponential growth.
0:01:41 He’s a productivity guru.
0:01:47 He was once the most popular blogger on Medium.com and his blogs have been read by over 100 million
0:01:48 people.
0:01:52 He’s got several books under his belt, including “Will Power Doesn’t Work” and “Ten X Is
0:01:54 Easier Than 2X.”
0:01:58 So Benjamin first came on the show in 2018 when I first started podcasting.
0:02:00 That was episode number seven.
0:02:07 I remember I was obsessed with Benjamin Hardy at the time and me and our team were so excited
0:02:08 he was coming on the podcast.
0:02:11 It was a star-struck moment for me.
0:02:17 And then we had him on again for episode 206 in January 2023 and then 260 last December.
0:02:22 So today we’re actually going to play episode 206 where we unpack two of his concepts to
0:02:25 help us foster greater achievement and happiness.
0:02:29 I’m talking about the power of embracing our future selves and getting familiar with a
0:02:32 new system for measuring our progress.
0:02:37 Something Ben and his co-author Dan Sullivan calls “the gap and the gain.”
0:02:39 I loved learning about the gap and the gain.
0:02:43 I remember when I had this episode, I thought about it over and over and over again.
0:02:45 It was really impactful for me.
0:02:46 I think you guys are going to love it.
0:02:52 There’s so much to learn here, let’s get right into it.
0:02:57 So Ben, I thought a really relatable place that we could start would be killing two birds
0:03:01 with one stone, so to speak, by unpacking a story that I heard you tell.
0:03:05 So I listened to a lot of podcasts when I’m researching for the show and preparing for
0:03:06 my guests.
0:03:11 And I heard you say on another podcast that when you released that book in 2018 that you
0:03:14 came on my podcast to talk about willpower doesn’t work.
0:03:19 You actually considered it a failure because it didn’t reach New York Times bestseller’s
0:03:20 list.
0:03:21 And that’s like every author’s dream.
0:03:25 But nonetheless, when you came on my podcast, I remember thinking it was such a big deal.
0:03:27 You were such a big blogger.
0:03:33 We had scored Benjamin Hardy episode number seven, and so you were a big deal to us and
0:03:37 to the outside world, but inside you felt like a failure.
0:03:38 So I want to talk about that.
0:03:43 I think it will give us some color on your journey and help us understand the gap and
0:03:44 again concept as well.
0:03:45 Absolutely.
0:03:49 I think it’s a beautiful, interesting place to start.
0:03:55 So I guess for a little context, I would say in 2000, ever so I served a church mission
0:03:58 from 2008 to 2010.
0:04:01 And like going on that experience was very transformational for me.
0:04:03 I grew up in a really intense environment.
0:04:05 We probably even talked about it four years ago.
0:04:10 But ever since I came home from that experience in 2010, I wanted to be a professional author.
0:04:14 Like that was a dream of mine, but I didn’t know what form it would take.
0:04:18 And I didn’t really start approaching that goal until 2015.
0:04:25 So from 2010 to 2015, I went to school, studied psychology, got into a PhD program for organizational
0:04:26 psychology.
0:04:29 And then once I was in my first year of my program, that’s when it really hit me.
0:04:34 And I got really committed, I guess you could say, to my future self of becoming a professional
0:04:35 author.
0:04:37 So this was early 2015.
0:04:42 And I was very, already very excited, very motivated.
0:04:45 And I had already learned a lot of success principles, I guess you could say.
0:04:47 And so I actually grew very fast as a blogger.
0:04:50 And that’s what took me to themedium.com and I grew.
0:04:57 And so essentially, from 2015 to 2017, I grew enormously as a blogger and was able to get
0:05:00 a book deal and be able to start providing for my family.
0:05:04 I mean, that was essentially my dream was to become a professional author and to be
0:05:06 able to provide for my family.
0:05:08 At the time, my wife and I had three foster kids.
0:05:11 We’ve adopted them since and et cetera.
0:05:14 So essentially, I got a multi six-figure book deal to write a book.
0:05:15 I’m living my dreams.
0:05:17 It all happens way faster than I thought.
0:05:23 And anyways, in early 2018, honestly, it was March of 2018, the book comes out.
0:05:28 And I did have way in my head, like I’d built everything up in my head that it needed to
0:05:29 be a certain level.
0:05:33 It needed to be a New York Times bestseller and I admittedly as well, threw so much money
0:05:34 at it.
0:05:39 Early 2018 was the first year I started to make like pretty dang good money.
0:05:42 And I threw a lot of it at that book.
0:05:45 And I was just throwing everything, kitchen sink at it.
0:05:50 And yeah, it just didn’t end up launching and exploding the way I thought it would.
0:05:55 Like I just expected it would go a certain way because most everything to that point
0:06:00 in terms of like my writing and my growth, just it was all going very, very well.
0:06:03 And so, yeah, it didn’t hit the goal.
0:06:07 And for probably four or five months, I was in a very deep depression, very deep slump
0:06:10 and kind of back to the idea of the gap in the game now.
0:06:14 It’s kind of funny that I launch a book.
0:06:15 I mean, I’m a professional author.
0:06:19 I released my first book, like I’ve never written a full book before I released this
0:06:20 book.
0:06:22 And to my publisher, they were very happy with the results.
0:06:26 But for me in my head, I just totally felt like a loser.
0:06:29 And yeah, I mean, I guess from there, I mean, if you want me to, I mean, I could explain the
0:06:30 gap in the game.
0:06:32 But yeah, I mean, that’s basically where I was at.
0:06:35 I guess I’ve learned to measure my own self differently.
0:06:38 So the gap in the game is something I learned from Dan Sullivan.
0:06:42 I read his little book on the subject, maybe actually it was in 2018.
0:06:46 I read his little book and I was still blogging back then.
0:06:47 And it was just an idea I loved.
0:06:51 If I ever get a chance to write books with Dan Sullivan, I’m going to make this a major
0:06:52 book.
0:06:54 And the idea is very simple.
0:06:59 It’s basically the idea that as a person, you’re, we all feel happy or sad based on
0:07:02 how we measure ourselves and how we measure our experiences.
0:07:07 The reason I went into a deep depression after I had made a monumental achievement, I mean,
0:07:09 I had never done that before.
0:07:10 It was totally new.
0:07:12 And yet I felt like a loser because I was in the gap.
0:07:16 I was measuring what was against what I thought it should be, which is an ideal.
0:07:20 When you’re in the gap, you’re measuring yourself against your ideals, which are always changing,
0:07:21 always moving.
0:07:22 Whereas the gain is the opposite.
0:07:25 You measure yourself backward against where you were before.
0:07:27 Truth was as I was way further than I’d ever been.
0:07:31 And if I was just measuring myself backward against my past self, competing only against
0:07:36 my past self, I was radically further than I ever was and I just did something huge.
0:07:40 I’m learning and I’ve learned over the years to be more in the game.
0:07:44 And it’s a far more enjoyable, far happier experience.
0:07:45 Yeah.
0:07:48 And I’d love to kind of dig deeper on this.
0:07:53 If you can help us understand the difference between ideals and goals and why that matters
0:07:55 with all of this.
0:08:01 So ideals are very, they’re very ephemeral, like they’re not actually tangible.
0:08:07 And so like how I learned it from Dan is ideals are like the horizon in the desert.
0:08:09 You can see them out there.
0:08:14 But every time you take a few steps forward, the horizon keeps going.
0:08:18 And in America, we’re actually trained to always be pursuing happiness.
0:08:21 And it’s even in the Declaration of Independence, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
0:08:24 And so we’re very big on ideals in America, which is good.
0:08:26 Like it’s good to have ideals.
0:08:27 It’s good to be idealistic.
0:08:28 There’s nothing wrong with ideals.
0:08:31 The problem is, is that they’re immaterial.
0:08:35 I think a definition of ideal is whatever you, whatever you believe is perfection.
0:08:39 So when you’re in the gap, you’re literally measuring yourself against your view of perfection.
0:08:44 But back to the idea of the horizon, that view is never endingly changing.
0:08:48 My former self would have felt like it was perfection just to get a book deal.
0:08:52 But then once I got there, the ideal changed, the horizon moved.
0:08:56 And so if you’re always measuring yourself against a moving target, and also a moving
0:09:02 target that by definition is unreachable, you can’t actually reach an ideal.
0:09:03 It’s an ideal.
0:09:06 But if you’re always measuring yourself against it, then you never feel like you’ve moved
0:09:07 anywhere.
0:09:10 That’s actually why we wrote the book is because high achievers by nature have huge ideals,
0:09:13 but they also usually measure themselves against them.
0:09:15 And our culture is trained that way.
0:09:19 Social media trains us to have ideals and to always be comparing ourselves externally.
0:09:21 And sometimes ideals are other people.
0:09:24 But if you’re always measuring yourself against something that’s way up ahead and also something
0:09:28 that you can never actually reach, then what that does for you internally is it feels like
0:09:30 you’ve never made any progress at all.
0:09:33 It also devalues everything you’ve done to that point.
0:09:36 And so whenever you’re in the gap, it does not matter how much you’ve achieved.
0:09:40 It doesn’t matter if you’re living way, way, way beyond the dreams of anything you ever
0:09:44 thought you would do, you actually feel like you’ve made no progress at all.
0:09:48 And you feel like a loser and you’ve devalued not only your current self, you’ve devalued
0:09:49 everything that got you here.
0:09:51 And so ideals are beautiful.
0:09:54 They’re just not useful as a measurement tool.
0:09:56 They’re useful as a direction tool.
0:09:58 Goals are far more concrete.
0:10:03 Obviously, you can have goals that you set that move you toward your ideals.
0:10:05 And so goals are specific.
0:10:06 They’re concrete.
0:10:08 They’re mile markers on a journey.
0:10:13 And then the useful thing to do with your goals is to obviously become increasingly
0:10:17 intrinsically motivated towards the goals you set and even the standards you set for
0:10:21 yourself that they’re less about what anyone else thinks, what anyone else wants.
0:10:24 And you actually get better at doing that when you just start measuring your progress
0:10:25 backwards.
0:10:26 So like I’ll set a goal for myself.
0:10:29 I’ve got huge goals for 2023.
0:10:33 But in terms of where I’m, where I’m measuring myself and in terms of my benchmark, like
0:10:36 my benchmark for 2023 is what I accomplished in 2022.
0:10:41 Like I accomplished some cool things, but I’m using that since it’s tangible.
0:10:42 Ideals are not tangible.
0:10:47 Like I have concrete evidence of what I did in 2022, and I can use that not only to propel
0:10:50 me forward, but I can also use that to say, what do I want to do that’s even going to
0:10:52 be bigger and more exciting.
0:10:53 Yeah.
0:10:56 So you can just measure yourself backwards and use that as the baseline for what you
0:10:57 can do.
0:10:58 Yeah.
0:11:00 So I hear you saying a couple big ideas here.
0:11:04 The first one is ideals are a moving target.
0:11:06 You’re never going to get there.
0:11:10 So you’re never going to be happy trying to go towards those ideals, because you’re never
0:11:11 going to actually achieve that.
0:11:13 You can’t actually achieve your ideal.
0:11:16 And it’s always moving further and further as you become more successful.
0:11:21 Second is comparing yourselves to other people that never helps in terms of our mindset or
0:11:23 happiness.
0:11:27 And then I hear you saying that goals can be tangible and you can have mile markers and
0:11:33 it’s okay to have goals, but you need to make sure that you’re judging your progress on those
0:11:40 goals based on your past, not necessarily how far you are from your ideal place.
0:11:43 I know I probably didn’t say it as good as you, but that’s basically what I’m gathering
0:11:44 from.
0:11:46 Now you broke it down beautifully.
0:11:49 I think that this is one of the main problems with the narratives.
0:11:52 Like there, you know, there’s a lot of narratives about how you shouldn’t have goals.
0:11:55 Obviously I think it’s impossible to not have goals.
0:11:58 I think human beings, we can’t not have a goal.
0:12:02 That’s part of being intentional, but the problem is the measurement.
0:12:06 I mean, even if I had hit my goal, I would have gone into the gap.
0:12:08 I would have moved the target.
0:12:13 So even if I had hit the New York times bestseller list from a gap perspective, I still would
0:12:16 have felt terrible about myself because I would have moved the target.
0:12:19 The target would have been, well, why wasn’t I on it for four weeks?
0:12:22 And why wasn’t I number one New York times bestseller?
0:12:23 Yeah.
0:12:24 Yeah.
0:12:25 Or why didn’t I hit number one?
0:12:27 So it doesn’t even, whether you hit the goal or not doesn’t even matter.
0:12:30 If you’re in the gap, it will never have been enough because the target will keep changing
0:12:35 and you’re measuring yourself against something that’s immeasurable and something that’s external
0:12:37 and always changing.
0:12:40 And so, yeah, whether it’s other people that you’re measuring yourself against or whether
0:12:45 it’s just your inflated ideals, that’s the point is, is that you won’t be happy hitting
0:12:48 or not hitting your goals if you stay in the gap.
0:12:49 That’s just the key.
0:12:50 Yeah.
0:12:52 So then on the flip side, let’s talk about gain thinking.
0:12:57 What does it look like to have gain thinking or to practice gain thinking?
0:12:59 So I look at gain thinking two ways.
0:13:03 One is, it’s a way of measuring your progress and measuring your experiences.
0:13:08 So for me, for example, like I’ve had a number of experiences already today, like even just
0:13:12 to this point, and some of them went to plans and some of them didn’t go to plans.
0:13:16 But if I’m in the game, I’m measuring what actually did happen and I’m measuring myself
0:13:17 backwards.
0:13:19 I’m only measuring myself against where I was before.
0:13:25 And the truth is, I’m always ahead of my past self, even if things go backwards seemingly,
0:13:28 like even if I lose my leg in a car accident, right?
0:13:33 Like a lot of bad things can seemingly happen, but if you’re in the game, you’re finding
0:13:36 the gains and you’re creating gains from your experiences.
0:13:40 I consider it your squeezing as much juice out of your experiences as possible.
0:13:44 You’re also always choosing to become better as a result.
0:13:47 No matter what happens to you, you’re in the game.
0:13:49 So everything ultimately happens for you.
0:13:51 So I guess it’s really two big ideas.
0:13:55 One is, is it’s measuring yourself backward against where you were before and always realizing
0:13:57 that you’re further than you were before.
0:14:01 And that the only thing I’m actually measuring myself against is myself, which is where I
0:14:02 was before.
0:14:04 So that’s number one is just measuring yourself backwards.
0:14:08 The second one is literally turning everything that happens to you into something that happens
0:14:09 for you.
0:14:14 So anything, no matter what it was, you can actually gain and grow from it.
0:14:17 And if you do, then you’re always getting better.
0:14:19 You’re always learning from every experience.
0:14:23 Whereas if you’re in the gap, then your past becomes a problem.
0:14:27 Using like a psychology standpoint, what you need to be happy in the present is you need
0:14:29 a happy past and an exciting future.
0:14:32 And the past is literally a meaning.
0:14:38 And so the gain is just a lens of using your, of transforming your past into more gains,
0:14:41 more learning, even from your most extreme traumas.
0:14:45 You can learn to turn those into gains so that you’re constantly better and even grateful
0:14:49 for them, which is what psychologists would call post-traumatic growth.
0:14:50 So it’s really just those two things.
0:14:53 I’m only measuring myself against myself backward and I’m literally turning every experience
0:14:55 into my gain.
0:14:58 So in your book, you say it’s not about becoming our future selves.
0:15:00 It’s actually about being our future selves.
0:15:05 Now, I think we just got a good foundation of gap thinking, gain thinking.
0:15:10 Here you are telling us basically, let’s not compare our progress to our ideals, but you’re
0:15:17 also not opposed to the fact of thinking in a futuristic way or thinking about our future.
0:15:19 It’s not like you’re saying, don’t think about your future at all.
0:15:22 It’s just that you’ve got to be your future self.
0:15:26 It’s not about becoming your future self in the gap between where you are and where you
0:15:27 want to be.
0:15:34 So tell us about how future self is sort of related to this gap and gain thinking.
0:15:37 This is a really interesting concept in psychology.
0:15:42 So like when, typically the way we look at time is we look at it as past, present and
0:15:43 future.
0:15:45 And we kind of look at it sequentially.
0:15:48 And we also look at it chronologically, like my past is behind me.
0:15:50 There’s no way I can get back there.
0:15:53 My present is now and the future is up ahead of me.
0:15:54 I’ll never actually be able to go into the future.
0:15:56 All there is is really now.
0:15:59 From a psychology standpoint, that’s not how psychologists view time.
0:16:01 Psychologists don’t view time sequentially.
0:16:03 We actually view it holistically.
0:16:07 So what I mean by that is that the past is currently existing in my life.
0:16:12 Who I’m being right now is a complete amalgamation of my views of my past, my experiences of
0:16:13 my past.
0:16:17 We, even today, we’re talking about us having a conversation four years ago.
0:16:22 And so like my past is of course influencing me right now and my narration of the past,
0:16:27 my story of the past, the feelings I have toward my past, the anchors I may have in
0:16:30 my past that are unresolved, call it trauma or whatever.
0:16:33 But also my goals are heavily influencing me.
0:16:36 Anyone who’s listening to this is listening to it for a reason.
0:16:38 They’re listening to it because they feel like this is going to help them contribute
0:16:40 to their goals or help them move forward in their lives.
0:16:46 And so everything about my life right now is a combination of my feelings and my perspectives
0:16:50 of my past and also my excitements or my feelings towards the future.
0:16:54 And so they’re certainly not mutually exclusive in terms of being in the game, but also having
0:16:56 a future-oriented mindset.
0:17:01 Most people who read the gap in the game are very future-oriented people.
0:17:03 The game doesn’t stop you, I guess, from having a future.
0:17:08 Actually in my perspective, whenever I’m living in the game, it actually helps me to be more,
0:17:13 it helps me to have a future that’s more genuinely coming from my own self rather than something
0:17:15 that’s coming from the outside.
0:17:19 Especially people’s goals and their standards or their ideals actually were fed to them
0:17:21 by culture, by society.
0:17:27 They don’t even, the future that they want actually isn’t genuinely intrinsically motivated.
0:17:31 And so for me, tapping into the game just helps me to stop worrying about the outside
0:17:34 world as much, stop competing with other people.
0:17:39 And so in terms of future self, I guess I would say in simple terms, we all have a future
0:17:40 self.
0:17:45 What the research shows is that most people, especially the older they get, they stop thinking
0:17:47 about their future self very much.
0:17:54 Most people probably 30 and above assume that even their future self, 10, 20, or 30 years
0:17:57 from now, is mostly going to be the same person they are today.
0:18:01 So most people don’t have huge imagination towards their future self.
0:18:04 What the research does show is that your future self is going to be a wildly different person
0:18:05 than you think.
0:18:08 Even in five or 10 years from now, it’s going to be hard to fully predict who your future
0:18:13 self will be, but if you start imagining it, start thinking about it, and importantly
0:18:17 getting really connected to your future self, who you want to be in the future.
0:18:21 You can then start using, obviously, your vision of your future self to guide and direct
0:18:24 who you’re going to be today, and you can be extremely intentional about it.
0:18:28 And so from my standpoint, the best thing to do is get really clear and connected to
0:18:33 your future self, who you want to be, get very specific about that, and then use that,
0:18:37 I guess you could say the North Star for directing everything you’re doing here and now, and
0:18:40 each and every day as you’re moving forward, you’re measuring yourself against where you
0:18:41 were before.
0:18:46 You’re measuring yourself backwards and you’re always seeing that by increasingly living
0:18:50 intentionally as your future self, you’re always outgrowing your past self.
0:18:51 I do this daily.
0:18:58 I mean, if I even look at where I was a week ago, I am not the same person I was last week.
0:18:59 I’ve changed a lot.
0:19:00 I’ve grown a lot.
0:19:05 I know a ton of things my past self didn’t know, and so I’m never my past self, and I’m
0:19:09 always growing into my future self, and that’s kind of how I see it.
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0:24:03 Something that I thought was really interesting when I was reading your work is this concept
0:24:08 of you actually thinking of your future self as a completely different person.
0:24:13 And I thought that was really eye-opening, because for one, I feel like you give yourself
0:24:17 some more grace when you think of your past and your future self as a different person.
0:24:22 It’s like you start to feel empathy for yourself, and you’re not so hard on yourself, depending
0:24:24 on what outcomes end up happening.
0:24:29 So I’d love to understand the importance of actually thinking of yourself as different
0:24:32 present self, future self, even past self.
0:24:37 So as an example, I would say this year in 2022, I’ve had some of my biggest wins, and
0:24:39 I’ve had also some of my biggest mistakes.
0:24:42 But I know that I’m not the same person I was.
0:24:46 Again, like I said, even a few weeks ago, I’m not mad at my past self, though.
0:24:49 My past self was coming from a different place.
0:24:53 And so I think it’s always good to have compassion and empathy towards your former self, because
0:24:55 you now know so many things that they didn’t know.
0:24:57 You know, you’re in a different place.
0:24:59 You see things differently.
0:25:03 And so, one, I think it’s very beautiful to recognize you’re not the same person as you
0:25:07 were in the past, and to have only empathy towards your past.
0:25:11 There’s no upsides to having bad or negative emotions towards your past.
0:25:13 It does nothing for your future.
0:25:14 It does nothing for your present.
0:25:21 And so always transforming your past into gains and greater perspective, learning.
0:25:25 That is, again, back to post-traumatic growth, it’s that you are grateful.
0:25:30 Like the idea of trauma is really that something happened to your past, and you feel like you’re
0:25:34 now in some way inferior.
0:25:35 You’ve gone backwards.
0:25:38 You’re also crippled in some way because of what happened, whereas the opposite is that
0:25:41 now you’re empowered because of what happened.
0:25:42 So I guess that’s one.
0:25:46 In terms of always seeing your future self as a different person, to me what that does
0:25:49 is it propels a growth mindset.
0:25:55 Like the definition of a fixed mindset is that you’ve purely defined who you are based
0:26:00 on your past, and then you assume that who you are now is who you’re always going to
0:26:01 be.
0:26:02 So you have a fixed mindset.
0:26:03 You don’t think you’re going to change.
0:26:07 You’ve already kind of painted your future self into a box, that your future self is the
0:26:08 exact person you are today.
0:26:12 And so that, I mean, what the research shows is that leads to kind of having a fragile
0:26:15 or a brittle approach to life where you’re too afraid to fail because you’re trying to
0:26:16 prove yourself.
0:26:20 Because if I know that my future self a week from now is going to be different, they’re
0:26:23 going to be way more knowledgeable, they’re going to be less ignorant, then that gives
0:26:26 me right now a lot of grace.
0:26:29 Like you said, like I don’t have to have all the answers right now.
0:26:33 Like one of my favorite kind of models for this, it comes from Bernadette Brown’s book,
0:26:36 The Atlas of the Heart, where she said you’re either trying to be right or you’re trying
0:26:37 to get it right.
0:26:41 And if you’re trying to be right, that’s the definition of a fixed mindset.
0:26:44 Like you’re trying to prove your current self because your future self isn’t going to
0:26:45 be any different.
0:26:46 Like you’ve already, you’re kind of stuck.
0:26:50 Whereas if you’re just trying to get it right, I know I’m going to make a lot of mistakes.
0:26:52 I know I don’t have all the answers now and I know my future self is going to have better
0:26:53 perspectives.
0:26:56 And once I get there, they’re going to be blown away at how different they are from who
0:26:57 I am today.
0:26:59 But also they’re always going to be trying to figure it out.
0:27:02 Like you’re always trying to get it right and you’re always growing and changing.
0:27:05 And so it just leads you to not needing to have it all figured out.
0:27:09 Instead you’re just in a state of learning, which is a growth mindset.
0:27:10 Yeah.
0:27:15 And something that I think is really interesting is that it’s actually hard to imagine a
0:27:16 person ourselves as a future self.
0:27:20 I think some people are better than others, but a lot of people have trouble imagining
0:27:22 who they are in the future.
0:27:24 Can you talk to us about why that is?
0:27:29 The main reason that people have a hard time, and this is something that Daniel Gilbert
0:27:33 said, he’s a Harvard psychologist who’s been studying this concept for 20 years.
0:27:37 And he actually gave a main stage Ted talk called the psychology of your future self
0:27:39 back in 2014.
0:27:43 But he said that the reason people have a hard time imagining their future self is because
0:27:44 they don’t do it.
0:27:46 Like they literally don’t take the time.
0:27:52 If anyone here was sitting listening, I would ask in the last seven days, how much time
0:27:54 have you spent imagining your future self?
0:27:57 How much time have you spent journaling and thinking about it?
0:28:01 My guess is, is that the average listener, and maybe this group would be different because
0:28:05 this is, these are young people who are actually, you know, have big visions, but I’d say the
0:28:09 average person who struggles to think about this, the main reason is just because they’re
0:28:12 not taking the time to think about it.
0:28:13 Imagination is very much a skill.
0:28:15 It’s a skill that you can get better and better at.
0:28:18 There’s kind of levels to seeing your future self.
0:28:23 The first one is honestly just connecting with your future self and having empathy for them.
0:28:27 Just like you would want to have empathy for your past self, a crucial first step to connecting
0:28:32 to your future self is having empathy that your future self is a real person.
0:28:36 They’re coming from a certain place and they’re being impacted by what you do.
0:28:41 And so like, if just a guy would have empathy for another person, if I was more emotionally
0:28:44 intelligent, I would realize that they’re coming from a different place than me.
0:28:47 They’ve got different perspectives, different values, different goals, they’re in a different
0:28:48 situation.
0:28:52 I would want to start by understanding, but then you go from connecting to getting really
0:28:57 vivid where it’s like, you now start to kind of see the context of your future self.
0:29:01 And obviously you get to create that like your future self is going to be different
0:29:06 from mine and I get to choose in large part what I want my future self to look like.
0:29:10 And so I think you just take the time to think, who do I want my future self to be in five
0:29:11 or 10 years?
0:29:13 What do I want that to look like?
0:29:15 What’s going to be really important to my future self?
0:29:18 What’s going to be really important to them that I should be paying attention to now?
0:29:22 I think it’s just taking the time to really think about it and putting yourself in a situation
0:29:24 like just as one simple example.
0:29:29 Let me just put myself into my future self shoes, call it in 2030.
0:29:32 So I know that it’s a little crazy for a lot of people, but I have six kids and the oldest
0:29:34 one is going to be 23.
0:29:37 So that’s one thing is like, okay, I’m going to have a 23 year old son.
0:29:40 My youngest is going to be 10.
0:29:43 And so I’m just starting to like actually start to think about that.
0:29:45 I’ll be 10 years older.
0:29:46 What do I want that to look like?
0:29:47 Where do I want to be?
0:29:48 What do I want to be focused on?
0:29:49 What’s going to be really important to me then?
0:29:52 Like literally starting to put yourself in the shoes and start to think about it.
0:29:55 And then starting to think, what are the most important things that I could do now that
0:29:56 would set that future self up?
0:30:01 I know that and you can do it in shorter timeframes, but it’s literally just actually putting concrete
0:30:05 around it and context to really start thinking about it.
0:30:06 Yeah.
0:30:11 The related to this in your book, you say that your identity is what you’re most committed
0:30:15 to and it’s your identity that actually drives your behaviors or your future identity.
0:30:17 Can you talk to us about that?
0:30:18 Yeah.
0:30:21 So identity is such an interesting concept and I really do think it’s, it’s kind of
0:30:26 the driver of everything, but then the question is, well, what drives identity and identity
0:30:31 is really actually driven by what your goals are, what you’re most committed to.
0:30:34 When I say it’s what you’re most committed to, it’s really two things.
0:30:38 It’s the story that you’re most committed to in terms of your past, present and future.
0:30:42 Like we all have a story about our past and who we were and what led us to this point.
0:30:45 We have a story about who we are now and we also have a story for our future.
0:30:49 And so that’s one commitment is the story or the narrative you have.
0:30:52 The second one is actually your standards.
0:30:56 So your standards as a person or what you’re committed to, like we all have standards.
0:30:57 Like I’ll give an example.
0:31:02 Like I was recently back home visiting and I have a cousin who’s been living at my dad’s
0:31:05 house for, call it five years.
0:31:07 He’s a cousin that lives at my dad’s house now and he’s one of those people who plays
0:31:12 World of Warcraft literally like all day unless he’s at work or sleeping.
0:31:14 And actually, honestly, that’s how I used to be.
0:31:19 I used to be that way where I played video games like 16 hours a day, but it was interesting
0:31:23 because I was talking to him and I was just catching up with him and I was just asking
0:31:26 him what was going on in the game because that’s kind of the main thing he does.
0:31:30 And he said, well, I recently left my group, my guild, it’s a guild in this online game.
0:31:31 And I said, well, why did you leave the guild?
0:31:34 And he said, because they’re just not up to my standard.
0:31:37 I have bigger goals that I want to achieve in the game and there’s, there’s things I
0:31:39 want to do and I just can’t do in this group.
0:31:42 And he’s one of those people who’s like at the top of the top of the top in this game.
0:31:47 And I said that was interesting that his standard for himself is really high in the game.
0:31:51 Like I have zero standards for myself in that game because it’s not valuable to me.
0:31:52 Like it’s not what I value.
0:31:57 So I have no standards there, but the question is, well, where are my standards?
0:32:00 Where do I actually care and how high are my standards in those areas?
0:32:03 And your standard does reflect what you’re committed to.
0:32:07 So like he showed that he was committed to something more, which is why he left that
0:32:09 group, because the standards were higher.
0:32:13 So as you elevate your standards and your story, you change your identity.
0:32:18 And so your standards are just whatever you hold yourself to that could be in your finances,
0:32:19 it could be in your health.
0:32:23 And when you raise the standards and it’s a true commitment, you don’t go back below
0:32:24 those standards.
0:32:28 You’re just saying no to everything that’s below those and it stops resonating with
0:32:33 your identity because your standards and your identity are pretty much the same thing.
0:32:38 So as you elevate your standards, you no longer can go back to doing what you were doing before
0:32:41 because it just doesn’t resonate with your identity anymore.
0:32:46 There’s things that I was even saying yes to call it a few months ago, which would be
0:32:48 unfathomable to me now.
0:32:53 Like it just doesn’t fit with what’s acceptable or even with what’s relevant to me anymore
0:32:55 because it no longer fits the standard.
0:32:56 Yeah.
0:33:00 So basically it’s having this very clear, vivid picture of your future self.
0:33:05 And then whenever you have decisions in terms of how you act or the things that you do,
0:33:08 you’re always being true to your future self.
0:33:13 And it helps you basically be able to say no more often and make the decisions that will
0:33:17 be good to your future self or what is aligned to your future self.
0:33:18 Yeah.
0:33:22 When you start to make your future self the standard, then it becomes a massive filtering
0:33:25 tool where it’s like, what would my future self do?
0:33:29 Or if I was my future self now, how would they approach this?
0:33:31 And how would my future self want me to do this?
0:33:36 And so that’s just using your future self as the standard, as the way for operating.
0:33:42 Like I know that my future self wants the best for me and also wants me to be my best.
0:33:47 And so if I start to make my future self the standard, then all of a sudden I’m going to
0:33:51 start making a lot better decisions in the present because not only am I thinking about
0:33:56 what’s best for me in my future, but I’m now using that as the tool for making the best
0:34:01 decisions now, whether that’s call it I’m at home and I could be engaging with my kids
0:34:04 on a really high level, which is what my future self would probably want me to do.
0:34:07 But instead I’m just kind of spacing out, like sitting on my phone.
0:34:14 Like if I’m using my future self as the standard and my future self being what would be ultimately
0:34:19 best for me and what I value most, it becomes a lot easier to make the decision here and
0:34:23 now to do what’s best for the present and the future.
0:34:29 I could imagine that if you don’t have a clear goal or vision of your future, your life is
0:34:30 just willy nilly.
0:34:31 Right.
0:34:32 You’re just doing things to do them.
0:34:33 You don’t have a clear goal.
0:34:34 It’s chaotic.
0:34:38 So what’s the downside of not even having a future self vision?
0:34:39 Yeah.
0:34:45 So if you don’t know who your future self is in any degree, or if you’re absolutely not
0:34:51 connected to your future self at all, the extreme end of that and like you can see this, the
0:34:56 extreme end of being disconnected to your future self is someone who has zero perspective
0:34:58 of consequences.
0:34:59 They’re so out of touch.
0:35:04 And I’ve seen this even with my kids where it’s like they’re acting so poorly like right
0:35:09 before bed, sometimes as a family, like if they do certain things like our night routine
0:35:13 really well, sometimes we’ll like watch like half a movie or something like that before
0:35:14 bed.
0:35:19 Like we will tell them sometimes like if you do the routine really well, we’ll like have
0:35:22 ice cream and watch a movie, you know, for like 40 minutes.
0:35:26 And then that, you know, sometimes if they’re not connected to that future self, even 45
0:35:33 minutes into the future, like they will do absolute terrible things that then lead us
0:35:35 to saying, nope, can’t do it.
0:35:36 And then they throw a fit.
0:35:40 They’re like, they can’t even believe that they lost what they did, but they were so disconnected
0:35:43 to what they were doing and the consequences.
0:35:48 And like this is what happens for extreme addicts where like you do something and you’re so
0:35:53 disconnected from the consequences that you’re shocked when all of a sudden like everything’s
0:35:54 falling apart.
0:36:01 And so like one degree of looking at this is like, if you are so disconnected from your
0:36:07 behavior and reality being consequences, which is what my kids were like, they’re acting
0:36:12 so opposite to the results that they want or think that they want, but they don’t even
0:36:13 know it.
0:36:18 It’s like, are you aware that what you’re doing right now is literally sabotaging you
0:36:22 in 10 minutes from now and you’re about to throw a fit and they don’t see it.
0:36:24 Like that is utter blindness.
0:36:28 But the other angle, which is kind of more the direction you were going was, it’s kind
0:36:34 of like the Alice in Wonderland thing where Alice meets the cat and the cat says, well,
0:36:36 Alice says, which way should I go?
0:36:39 Cause there’s two different paths and the cat says, well, that depends on where you
0:36:40 want to go.
0:36:41 And she says, well, I don’t know where I’m going in.
0:36:44 So he says, then you can literally go any direction you want.
0:36:47 Cause if you don’t know where you want to go, if you don’t have a destination in mind,
0:36:50 then it literally doesn’t matter what you do today.
0:36:53 That’s part of, I guess, what you would say is being connected to your future self is once
0:36:58 you get specific about where you want to go, about what you want, then you can start to
0:37:00 formulate pathways of getting there.
0:37:05 But if you have absolutely no direction, no destination, then it does not matter what
0:37:07 you do here and now.
0:37:09 You’re essentially rudderless.
0:37:13 Your future self becomes the anchor and it becomes the compass to like the decisions
0:37:14 you make here and now.
0:37:17 And that’s, that’s actually literally what all the research shows now.
0:37:22 And by the way, the Psychology Today magazine that just came out in September and October
0:37:26 was all about future self and about the person you’re going to be in the future because this
0:37:31 topic is becoming so, so big in psychology and even in therapy.
0:37:36 Like therapists are finding that there’s really no way we can help someone change long term
0:37:38 without getting them connected to their future self.
0:37:42 Because if they’re not, if they’re not thinking about who they want to be, it’s very hard
0:37:45 to change without a goal or without a why.
0:37:50 That then just becomes behavior change, which is kind of willpower focused.
0:37:52 And you can’t really sustain that without a direction.
0:37:57 And so I would say it’s very difficult to be intentional if you don’t have a future
0:37:59 self you’re working towards.
0:38:00 Yeah.
0:38:04 I interview really successful people all the time like yourself.
0:38:08 I had Alex Hermose on the show who’s like everybody’s new favorite sales and marketing
0:38:10 entrepreneur.
0:38:15 And we were talking about focus and this idea of focus is becoming such a big theme lately.
0:38:18 I’ve been doing podcasting for almost five years now.
0:38:22 And more and more, it just sounds like people saying you need to get focused.
0:38:27 If you’re unfocused, if you’re unprioritized, you’re not going to really achieve extraordinary
0:38:28 success.
0:38:32 Like you can be successful, of course, but to really, you know, become that 1%, Scott
0:38:35 Galloway was on and said the same thing.
0:38:39 And so what you’re saying is aligned to that understanding your future self is having this
0:38:42 extreme focus of who you want to be, right?
0:38:45 And the steps you’re going to take to get there because you understand who you want
0:38:46 to be.
0:38:50 And that targets always moving, but you’re always taking the actions that’s going to
0:38:52 help your future self, right?
0:38:55 So let’s tie this all together with an example.
0:38:57 You talk about Mr. Beast in your book, I believe.
0:39:03 And so I’d love to understand how Mr. Beast used this concept to be a 17-year-old kid,
0:39:06 no money, no skills, to one of the most famous people in the world.
0:39:08 So this was really interesting to me.
0:39:14 I was shocked when it happened because I was writing Be Your Future Self Now.
0:39:17 So I wrote a book called Personality Isn’t Permanent.
0:39:22 And I did not know about the future self research, even though like I had already done a PhD.
0:39:28 It was still kind of a growing, they call it like a branch or a vein of research, like
0:39:32 it was a topic I’d never really heard of, and it was kind of small, but it was burgeoning,
0:39:33 meaning it was growing.
0:39:39 And anyways, while I was writing that book, call it End of 2019, Early 2020, I fell upon
0:39:40 the research on future self.
0:39:44 And I was like, oh my goodness, why have I never heard of this before?
0:39:45 Like why have I never even seen this?
0:39:49 Why have I never heard people talking about this, whether it’s in psychology or in self-development
0:39:50 or anything?
0:39:52 Like why is this a new idea?
0:39:57 It seems like this is like the grounding of all self development ideas and also like psychology.
0:40:00 But anyways, I knew I wanted to write a book on it.
0:40:03 And so I was doing all sorts of research on it while writing other books.
0:40:07 And then all of a sudden in 2020, and I had known who Mr. Beast was just because I mean
0:40:11 I like YouTube, I was watching it, and he’s this interesting figure, right, doing these
0:40:14 huge outlandish videos.
0:40:18 And I was mostly watching them with my kids and just blown away by what he was doing.
0:40:22 And then all of a sudden in October, so it’s an October of 2020, a video comes up and it’s
0:40:25 called “High Me in Five Years.”
0:40:29 And it’s got a picture of like a younger version of Mr. Beast, Jimmy Donaldson, right?
0:40:30 And it’s sketchy.
0:40:37 Like I turn, I click the video and it’s Tim Talking as a 17-year-old kid in 2015.
0:40:41 It’s filmed in 2015 and he’s saying, “Hi, you know, whenever you see this video, I just
0:40:44 want to let you know like it’s 2015.
0:40:46 I’m filming this video for my room.
0:40:48 I should be studying for my history test.
0:40:52 But I just wanted to take this minute and have a conversation with myself in five years
0:40:53 from now.”
0:40:54 And he basically just starts talking to his future self.
0:40:56 It’s like two minutes long.
0:40:59 It’s really rough, filmed from a really bad camera.
0:41:01 He shows where he’s at with his YouTube channel.
0:41:03 I think he’s got like 8,000 subscribers.
0:41:05 And basically he just talks about his future self.
0:41:07 He’s like, “Where do I want to be in five years?
0:41:09 Like who do I think I’m going to be in five years?”
0:41:14 And he’s just kind of having this intimate, personal conversation with his future self
0:41:15 in public.
0:41:21 So basically what happened, you know, as you scroll way back in time through his channel,
0:41:24 you actually see that he did this multiple times, but he did it all the same night.
0:41:26 So it was in October.
0:41:32 It was, well, you know, if you use the exact date, it was October 4th of 2015.
0:41:37 And he was 17 years old and what he ended up doing, I don’t know where he got the idea,
0:41:41 but he filmed four different future self videos.
0:41:42 Each of them were like two minutes long.
0:41:46 So the first one was where do I want to be in, he said hi me in six months or something
0:41:47 like that.
0:41:51 And so he was talking to his future self six months into the future and just saying mostly
0:41:56 because his obsession, which as you can see, whatever you focus on expands, he got very
0:42:01 good at YouTube, but most of his future self was related to like himself as a YouTuber.
0:42:04 You know, he wanted to be a famous YouTuber, he wanted to be the biggest YouTuber in the
0:42:05 world.
0:42:08 And so like, as he’s talking to his future self six months into the future, he’s like,
0:42:11 “You know, if I have 20,000 subscribers, it’s going to be absolutely amazing and stuff
0:42:12 like that.
0:42:13 If I don’t, it’s going to be embarrassing.”
0:42:16 So he did one for six months out, one for a year out.
0:42:20 I think he did one for five years out and then he did a 10 year all that night.
0:42:24 And so obviously none of us even will see, it’ll be really ridiculous to see where he’s
0:42:26 at in 2025.
0:42:29 I guess that’s only three years away now that we think about it.
0:42:34 But basically all of those videos were only two minutes long and what he did is he filmed
0:42:38 them all in one place, one time he probably took 10 or 15 minutes to film the four videos.
0:42:43 You know, he set them to go publish on his YouTube channel, but he set them to go into
0:42:44 their corresponding times.
0:42:48 And so he set the six month one to go live, six months into the future, the one year one
0:42:51 to go live a year into the future, the five year one.
0:42:56 And so on October 4th of 2020, when the video just automatically went live because he had
0:43:01 said it to go live five years into the future, he actually had forgotten that he had made
0:43:02 that video.
0:43:04 Like it was a shock to him.
0:43:08 But in that video, he said he wanted to have a million YouTube subscribers and he wouldn’t
0:43:12 have even been able to fathom what it would have been like to have a million subscribers.
0:43:17 Well, when the video actually went live in 2020, his channel had like 45 million subscribers.
0:43:20 By that point, he was incomparably a different person.
0:43:21 He had a huge business.
0:43:22 He was like had a big team.
0:43:26 He was all of his videos were getting like tens of millions, sometimes hundreds of millions
0:43:27 of views.
0:43:30 And even since then now, you know, he’s got multiple channels and he’s doing so many
0:43:31 things.
0:43:32 It’s even ridiculous.
0:43:36 But I mean, he’s just an interesting example of someone who was very public about his future
0:43:41 self, not afraid of admitting his future self and you can actually see when you watch his
0:43:47 old videos before that day, October 4th of 2015, you can see that obviously he got really
0:43:51 clear and committed to his future self because the videos started changing after that time
0:43:54 and his growth started to like really like accelerate.
0:43:57 And so he’s just someone who is obviously connected to commit to his future self.
0:44:01 He used his future self as the basis for what he did.
0:44:05 He was talking to his future self in public and that was obviously his identity that drove
0:44:06 him forward.
0:44:08 And he continued to raise his standard for who he became and what he did.
0:44:13 So he’s just a brilliant example of it with no apology, like no embarrassment, like he
0:44:14 doesn’t care.
0:44:17 And I think that’s a huge thing is to not be ashamed of your future self.
0:44:19 So many people are afraid to admit what they want.
0:44:23 We’ll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors.
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0:49:25 How about in terms of like the timeline of your future self?
0:49:28 Should we think about ourselves five years from now, 10 years from now?
0:49:30 Do we want to think of like a range?
0:49:32 Like what’s your suggestion there?
0:49:36 So this is the beautiful part about time psychologically is that you can use it however
0:49:38 you want.
0:49:41 One of the areas and we don’t have to go too deep into this in the book, but like obviously
0:49:43 a lot of people believe in God.
0:49:46 And so a lot of people believe in their future self after this life.
0:49:50 And so like obviously a lot of people are thinking about the afterlife and they’re using their
0:49:53 views of that to dictate their decisions now.
0:49:56 So like you can go as far into the future as you want.
0:49:59 You can go beyond this life if you want and you can think about your future self there
0:50:01 and learn about that, which a lot of people do.
0:50:04 And that influences a lot of their decisions and the meaning in their life.
0:50:09 You know, Stephen Covey had the old concept of imagining your 80th birthday party and
0:50:12 like what you want your life to be like on your 80th birthday party.
0:50:13 Who do you want to be there?
0:50:15 What do you want people to talk about your life about?
0:50:20 So like you can think way ahead and think big picture, you know, and expand that out
0:50:24 and really start to think like what will really have mattered at the end of my life?
0:50:26 Like what matters?
0:50:30 And ideally you spend most of your time on the things which matter, not on the things
0:50:31 which don’t.
0:50:34 But in terms of hyper practicality.
0:50:39 I think it’s good to build your future self around various timelines, like various important
0:50:40 anchor moments.
0:50:42 And so like I gave you 2030 on purpose.
0:50:44 That wasn’t an accident.
0:50:50 The reason I gave you 2030 is because the youngest one that we adopted in 2030, he will
0:50:51 turn 18.
0:50:56 And so the older two will be gone, he will be leaving in 2030.
0:51:00 And that is going to be a big moment for me, my wife and our younger three kids because
0:51:03 chances are we’re going to move from Florida, like when he moves.
0:51:04 We live in Florida.
0:51:08 We might not, you know, our future selves might have different plans, but that’s kind
0:51:13 of a huge anchor moment for my future self, for my family’s future self is like our older
0:51:14 three kids are going to leave.
0:51:16 Our younger ones are much younger than the ones we adopted.
0:51:20 So like me and my wife have spent some time thinking about like what’s going to happen
0:51:21 when Logan leaves?
0:51:25 Like where are we going to go become nomadic and like travel the world, live in different
0:51:26 countries?
0:51:30 And so like we’re starting to think about our future self on that timeline because there’s
0:51:33 a key moment there, like there’s a key anchor to that.
0:51:38 And so like it’s good to think about your future self in terms of key anchor anchoring
0:51:41 times because then you can really start to map out like what do I want to see happen
0:51:42 in the next eight years?
0:51:44 And like where would I like to be when Logan leaves?
0:51:47 Like I can really think big on an eight year scale.
0:51:52 Like I can do a lot of things between now and 2030 when he leaves.
0:51:59 In terms of super practicality, I think three years in terms of tangible goals, three years
0:52:04 is a really good timeline for really achieving big specific things.
0:52:08 Like you and I over the last three years, you know, it’s been a little over three years
0:52:12 now, but like in terms of you three years ago, if you’re thinking about like how big
0:52:13 do you want to see your podcast go?
0:52:19 Like over three years, you can grow enormously toward a very specific goal.
0:52:24 And so thinking in terms of like if I want to grow really big in a very specific direction,
0:52:28 call it me as an author, you as a podcast, someone in their finances, someone towards
0:52:37 skills, three years, you can get really specific and you can still grow like 10x, 100x, 1000x
0:52:38 big in a certain direction.
0:52:45 So I think three years or less in terms of really big sprints towards big goals.
0:52:46 I love that.
0:52:47 I think that’s super, super helpful.
0:52:48 Okay.
0:52:55 So I want to move into purpose and understanding how purpose is related to all of this.
0:52:59 And so I think a good place to start would be understanding the levels of every behavior.
0:53:02 You say it’s the what, the why, and the how.
0:53:07 Can you talk to us about how your why really drives the what and the how?
0:53:08 Yeah.
0:53:11 So the why is the reason for doing it.
0:53:13 This is where you start to become intentional.
0:53:17 So as an example, if someone’s listening to this podcast, my question would be, well,
0:53:19 why are you listening to it?
0:53:24 And the why would then highlight what you’re ultimately trying to do and what you ultimately
0:53:25 value.
0:53:28 Like everyone’s going to have a different why for why we’re doing this.
0:53:34 You have a different why for interviewing me as I have for being interviewed, right?
0:53:41 And so it’s important to clarify and understand what the why is that’s driving everything
0:53:42 you’re doing.
0:53:45 And I’m of the belief that you do choose the why.
0:53:51 Like you do choose it, you clarify it, but you can scrape away levels of understanding
0:53:52 it.
0:53:53 But the why is just the purpose.
0:53:54 The purpose is the goal.
0:53:58 What is the ultimate reason you’re doing this Aristotle would call that final cause, which
0:54:00 is basically the end.
0:54:05 So as an example, like if, if I’m hungry, like if I get up and go to the, to the kitchen
0:54:09 and start eating, well, it’s like, well, why did I get up and go to the kitchen?
0:54:12 It might have been because I’m hungry, but it also might have been cause I was triggered
0:54:15 and I’m just trying to avoid trying to avoid working.
0:54:21 Like, and so it’s just understanding the why and the purpose starts to help you realize
0:54:23 what’s driving your behavior.
0:54:27 You know, when you’re younger, the why might have been just to impress your friends.
0:54:33 And so there’s always a why behind every action and how psychologists frame it is, is every
0:54:37 goal is either an approach oriented goal where you’re trying to approach what you want or
0:54:39 you’re trying to avoid what you don’t want.
0:54:44 And so the why is always going to either be approaching something you want or avoiding
0:54:45 something you don’t want.
0:54:49 And so it’s helpful when the why is more approach oriented.
0:54:52 Sure you want to avoid bad things from happening, but if, if everything you’re doing is just
0:54:57 to avoid negative things from happening, that kind of probably shows it.
0:55:00 There’s a lot of trauma that’s unresolved in the past and so you’re trying to avoid
0:55:01 a lot of pain.
0:55:02 Yeah.
0:55:05 So I’d love if we could like just dig on this a little bit.
0:55:09 So we’re talking about the difference between approach motivations and avoid motivations.
0:55:14 When we approach motivation, we’re basically creating our future rather avoid motivation
0:55:19 is just avoiding a future we don’t want and it’s better to proactively create one is what
0:55:20 you’re saying.
0:55:22 I just want to understand what you’re trying to say.
0:55:24 I mean, it’s good to avoid things you don’t want.
0:55:29 Like it’s good to be strategic about avoiding, call it bad decisions, avoiding bad people.
0:55:34 But if you’re always just avoiding, then basically every action you’re taking is a reaction against
0:55:35 something else.
0:55:39 Like I’m trying to not, but even avoiding things is based on the future.
0:55:42 Like I’m, so I’m like, I’m trying to avoid being out of shape.
0:55:44 I don’t want to like be obese in the future.
0:55:45 So I’m going to avoid that.
0:55:51 Like that’s one way of approaching your future, but it’s far more powerful and more proactive
0:55:53 to say, well, what do, what is it?
0:55:55 I truly want to approach.
0:55:56 Like what is it?
0:55:59 I want to like direct my attention towards and focus on and create.
0:56:03 And yeah, I can avoid landfalls along the way and I can learn from experiences and avoid
0:56:06 those kinds of people or I can avoid those kinds of dumb mistakes.
0:56:11 Like certainly you can avoid things, but it is very powerful to be proactive and kind
0:56:14 of consciously creating like this is what I want.
0:56:16 And then to watch yourself go and get it.
0:56:22 And so both are useful, both are incredibly useful both their motivations.
0:56:26 And I think it’s helpful when you’re trying to observe yourself, like why am I doing this?
0:56:30 It’s either going to be to approach something you want or to avoid something you don’t.
0:56:32 And that can start to highlight kind of the why.
0:56:37 And one of the reasons why avoid motivations can have downsides is because if you’re always
0:56:41 just trying to avoid something, then that means that one of the things you’re avoiding
0:56:42 is fear.
0:56:46 Like you’re avoiding going through the emotions of getting what you want.
0:56:51 Like if you’re always avoiding, then you’re also avoiding the hard truths.
0:56:52 You’re avoiding the fear.
0:56:55 You’re avoiding hard conversations.
0:56:58 And so when you’re approaching something, you’re willing to face what you would typically
0:57:00 want to avoid.
0:57:08 I recently am an end in process of ending a really what’s been a great business collaboration.
0:57:15 But for a while, I had avoided the conversation and avoided kind of thinking about what it
0:57:16 would take if that happened.
0:57:21 If you’re always avoiding, then what that means is that you’re not passing through the
0:57:24 emotions and the fear that are going to get you where you want to go.
0:57:26 When you’re operating with commitment and courage, you’re not avoiding.
0:57:29 You’re going right through it and you’re transforming through it.
0:57:30 I love that.
0:57:35 So just to round this out, I thought a good story that kind of ties into a lot that we
0:57:36 were talking about.
0:57:40 And I know that he’s a big inspiration for you is Victor Frankel’s life.
0:57:45 Can you tell us the story about Victor Frankel and how he used his purpose of protecting
0:57:50 his book to survive while he was in the concentration camps in the Holocaust?
0:57:54 And what you learned from his story about hope and purpose, and then we’ll close out
0:57:56 the conversation.
0:58:01 So the reason Frankel is so important, and again, man search for meaning one of the most
0:58:07 important books in the world, he was a Jewish person who in 1942 was taken into the Holocaust,
0:58:08 right?
0:58:10 German Nazi concentration camps.
0:58:15 And what he found with people who are living in such dire situations, we really, I mean,
0:58:18 unless you actually study the Holocaust, you don’t even understand what I’m saying.
0:58:20 It’s gibberish right now.
0:58:23 It was almost unfathomable how bad it was.
0:58:27 Like the people were starved, they were thrown in gas chambers, people were shot in the head
0:58:28 right next to you.
0:58:34 Like you’re sitting doing grunt work for months, months, months, years and years and years.
0:58:35 Everything’s been taken from you.
0:58:36 Even the clothes off your back.
0:58:41 You’re standing there naked, deprived of everything, deprived of your dreams, deprived
0:58:42 of everything.
0:58:46 And what Frankel noticed when he was in those situations, because he was a psychologist
0:58:50 and so like he was paying attention to this stuff, he was very in tune with what was going
0:58:55 on in people’s heads and like why some people could be resilient and even be happy in these
0:59:00 crazy conditions and why some people would get desperate, lose their minds.
0:59:06 And he started to draw an interesting correlation, which was in those dire situations when you’re
0:59:08 kind of deprived of everything and you’re also starved physically.
0:59:13 I mean, they were only given like a small piece of bread every day is he saw an immediate
0:59:19 correlation that like when someone lost hope toward their future, within days they died
0:59:23 in those situations, like their body didn’t have enough to sustain them.
0:59:26 If you and I lost hope in our future, we’d start to fall apart physically.
0:59:30 Like we’d probably lose our health, you know, and hope from a psychology standpoint is like
0:59:33 air to your physical body, like food and air.
0:59:37 Like you need hope because your who you are right now is largely dictated by your views
0:59:38 of the future.
0:59:44 So basically what Frankel found was is that unless you had a specific goal, which is a
0:59:50 huge aspect of hope, without a specific goal that gave your life meaning and substance,
0:59:54 you couldn’t handle the present, especially when it was that bad.
0:59:57 And so that’s why he always quoted Nietzsche, which is when you have a why to live for you
0:59:59 can bear almost any how.
1:00:03 And so everything he did, and he literally he layers it, and I share the best quotes
1:00:07 of it in future self, but he says, you know, when you lose, when you lose hope in your
1:00:08 future, you know, you’re doomed.
1:00:12 But he also said that everything we did in the concentration camps to give people hope
1:00:17 or to even help them to be able to manage their mind or manage their emotions was we
1:00:22 had to give to them a goal in their future, which they could work towards.
1:00:28 And he himself, he literally stated the goal that gave him purpose and gave him meaning
1:00:30 and allowed him to endure the trials.
1:00:34 And for him, it was he wanted to be reconnected with his wife, Tilly, who was taken to another
1:00:35 camp.
1:00:38 He didn’t know that she’d already been killed when she was pregnant with their baby, but
1:00:40 he didn’t know that he wanted to be reconnected with her.
1:00:45 But also he wanted to rewrite his book, which was almost done being written when they got
1:00:50 basically taken by the Nazis and they took the manuscript and tore it apart.
1:00:52 He literally states this in man search for meaning.
1:00:57 He said, my deep desire to rewrite that book anew and publish it allowed me to overcome
1:00:59 the rigors and the pain of the camps.
1:01:03 So when you have a way to live for, you can bear almost anyhow.
1:01:07 If you don’t have a way to live for, if you don’t have hope and commitment in your future,
1:01:08 then you’re not going to be very productive.
1:01:12 I mean, little things in your day can throw you way off, but for him, in those situations,
1:01:14 it was life or death.
1:01:15 It’s literally life or death.
1:01:16 Yeah.
1:01:17 So, so fascinating.
1:01:20 I think this is a great way to close out the interview.
1:01:24 So I always end the interview with a couple last questions and then we do something fun
1:01:26 at the end of the year and recap them.
1:01:30 So the first one is what is one actionable thing our young and profiteers can do today
1:01:33 to become more profitable tomorrow?
1:01:39 It goes back to the Alex Hermosi comment for me right now, which is, I love the quote,
1:01:43 it’s better to be a meaningful specific than a wandering generality.
1:01:49 And so the more clear you get on your future self and the more specific that obviously
1:01:51 takes you down a specific direction.
1:01:53 You’re not trying to be everything for every one.
1:01:57 Like some of the recent decisions I’ve made in my career and in the books I’m writing
1:02:03 have to do with becoming even more focused, even more specific in a narrow range.
1:02:07 It’s kind of like the 80/20 principle, like 80% of what you’re doing is kind of a distraction,
1:02:10 whereas it’s just the core 20 that makes sense.
1:02:13 And so you want to go deeper and deeper into that, like let go of everything else, like
1:02:18 actually commit and go deep and get 10 times better in something specific.
1:02:23 Like if you get really, really good in something specific, it kind of reminds me of that quote,
1:02:25 “Become so good you can’t be ignored.”
1:02:28 But it’s really about qualitative, not quantitative.
1:02:32 It’s not about the quantity of what you do, it’s about the quality of how you do it.
1:02:36 And that requires focus, commitment, and purpose.
1:02:42 And so just commit to something and commit to getting really, really good and unique
1:02:43 in that thing.
1:02:44 That’s actually what mastery is.
1:02:48 It’s not about doing something well, it’s about doing something uniquely well, incomparably
1:02:49 well.
1:02:52 And that takes commitment and depth, not broadness.
1:02:53 Love that.
1:02:54 Mic drop.
1:02:55 All right.
1:02:58 And what is your secret to profiting in life?
1:02:59 Defining what profit means to me.
1:03:01 Not everything is profitable.
1:03:02 Not everything is worth my time.
1:03:03 Not everything is useful.
1:03:07 And so defining what I value, what I care about, what matters most, and then going all
1:03:20 in on those few things and letting go of everything else.
1:03:23 (upbeat music)
1:03:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]