Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Benjamin Hardy: The #1 Personal Growth Hack in 2023, How to Change Your Identity and Make Better Choices | E206

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

During the Holocaust, Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl was sent to a concentration camp. He survived by focusing on his one goal: to return home to his family. Frankl saw that once people lost hope for their future, they ultimately lost their life. Dr. Benjamin Hardy has applied Frankl’s research to his own life as an organizational psychologist. In this episode, Ben returns to YAP to discuss the power of embracing our future selves and how to get familiar with a new system for measuring our progress! He will also share why unsuccessful people focus on “The Gap” and successful people focus on “The Gain.” Dr. Benjamin Hardy is an organizational psychologist and the world’s leading expert on the psychology of entrepreneurial leadership and exponential growth. He was once the most popular blogger on the platform Medium.com and his blogs have been read by over 100 million people. He has several books under his belt including the bestseller Willpower Doesn't Work. On top of it all, Benjamin is also a sought-after corporate speaker.  In this episode, Hala and Benjamin will discuss:  - Why Ben considered himself a failure after writing his first book - What it means to be in the Gap vs. the Gain - The difference between ideals and goals - How to commit to our future selves - Why imagining is actually a skill - Viktor Frankl’s tools for survival  - Mr. Beast’s journey toward his future self - Understanding the what, the why, and the how - How to view the timeline of our future self - And other topics… Dr. Benjamin Hardy is an organizational psychologist and is the world’s leading expert on the psychology of entrepreneurial leadership and exponential growth. His Ph.D. research focused on entrepreneurial courage and transformational leadership. Before completing his Ph.D., his blogs were read by over 100 million people.  Benjamin published his first major book Willpower Doesn’t Work while running a 7-figure online training business. Dr. Hardy has published additional books, including three co-authored with the legendary entrepreneurial coach, Dan Sullivan. His books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies and he is a sought-after teacher and speaker at corporate and entrepreneurial events as well as Fortune 500 companies. His new book, 10x Is Easier Than 2x: How World-Class Entrepreneurs Achieve More by Doing Less, is available for preorder and will be released on May 2023. Resources Mentioned: Future Self: https://futureself.com/ Benjamin's Books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Benjamin-P.-Hardy/author/B00P6MYJUO?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true Benjamin’s Website: https://benjaminhardy.com/  Benjamin’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminhardy88/  Benjamin’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/BenjaminPHardy  Benjamin’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/benjamin_hardy_phd/  Benjamin’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/benjaminhardy88/ Sponsored By:  Shopify - Sign up for a free trial at shopify.com/profiting More About Young and Profiting Download Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com   Get Sponsorship Deals - youngandprofiting.com/sponsorships Leave a Review - ratethispodcast.com/yap Watch Videos - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting Follow Hala Taha LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ TikTok - tiktok.com/@yapwithhala Twitter - twitter.com/yapwithhala Learn more about YAP Media Agency Services - yapmedia.io/ Join Hala's LinkedIn Masterclass - yapmedia.io/course Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of YAP is sponsored in part by Shopify. Shopify simplifies selling online and in-person so you can focus on successfully growing your business. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com-profiting. The reason Fronkel is so important, he was a Jewish person who in 1942 was taken into the Holocaust, right? And what Fronkel noticed, because he was a psychologist, and so like he was paying attention to this stuff,

he saw an immediate correlation when someone lost hope toward their future, within days they died. Without a specific goal that gave your life meaning and substance, you couldn't handle the present, especially when it was that bad. This topic is becoming so big in psychology and even in therapy, like therapists are finding that there's really no way we can help someone change long term without getting them connected

to their future self. If they're not thinking about who they want to be, that then just becomes behavior change, which is kind of willpower focused, and you can't really sustain that without a direction. What is up, young and profitors? You're listening to YAP, Young and Profiting podcasts where we interview the brightest minds in the world and turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your daily life. I'm your host, Halla Taha, aka the podcast princess. Thanks for listening

and get ready to listen, learn and profit. Ben, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. You came on the show four years ago to discuss your first book, Will Power Doesn't Work. And that was for episode number seven. This is when I first started podcasting way back in 2018. It feels like so long ago and things have completely changed for me. Yapp is now a number one entrepreneurship podcast. They call me the podcast princess because I've made so much progress in this space. But one thing does remain consistent after all these years.

You are still by far my number one favorite productivity expert. And so, so happy to have you back on YAP. And thank you for believing in me early in my career. I'm happy to be back. I mean, it's crazy to think about 2018 that that was four years ago. Well, part of his work was my first book. And so it's kind to think about 2018 that that was four years ago. Well, part of it hasn't worked with my first book. And so it's kind of interesting to be back here.

All these books later and to see where the heck your podcast is at. And it's crazy. I mean, you sent me this microphone. You sent me a cup like I'm like having this world-class experience. It is pretty funny to see how different things are four years later for everyone. Yeah, it is. We both made so much progress. And guys, when I interviewed Ben,

I was so scared of being a podcaster that I wasn't even like, basically in the interview. I was audio-only. I basically had everything scripted. But things have changed. You know, you put in the reps, you get better. And young and profitors, I'm super excited to announce today's guest, Dr. Benjamin Harder.

He's an organizational psychologist. He's the world's leading expert on psychology of entrepreneurial leadership and exponential growth. And he was once the most popular blogger on medium.com. His blogs have been read by over a hundred million people. He has several books under his belt, including the best seller willpower, doesn't work. And he's also a sought after corporate speaker. So in this episode, Ben and I will unpack two of his latest concepts to help us foster

greater achievement and happiness, namely the power of embracing our future selves and getting familiar with a new system for measuring our progress, would he and his co-author Dan Sullivan calls the gap in the game. So Ben, I thought a really relatable place that we could start would be killing two birds

with one stone, so to speak, by unpacking a story that I heard you tell. So I listen to a lot of podcasts when I'm researching for the show and preparing for my guests. And I heard you say on another podcast that when you released that book in 2018 that you came on my podcast to talk about, willpower doesn't work.

You actually considered it a failure because it didn't reach New York Times bestsellers list. And that's like every author's dream. But nonetheless, like when you came on my podcast, I remember thinking it was such a big deal. You were such a big blogger. We had scored Benjamin Hardy like episode number seven. And so you're a big deal to us and to the outside world, but inside you felt like a failure. So I wanna talk about that. I think it will give us some color on your journey and help us understand the gap in the game concept as well.

Absolutely. I think it's a beautiful, interesting place to start. So I guess for a little context, I would say in 2000, ever so I served a church mission from 2008 to 2010. And like going on that experience was very transformational for me. I grew up in a really intense environment.

We probably even talked about it four years ago. But ever since I came home from that experience in 2010, I wanted to be a professional author. So like that was a dream of mine, but I didn't know what format would take. And I didn't really start approaching that goal until 2015. So from 2010 to 2015, I went to school, study psychology, got into a PhD program for organizational psychology, and then once I was in my first year of my program, that's when it really hit me, and I got really committed, I guess you could say to my future self of becoming a professional author. So this was early 2015 and I was already very excited, very motivated.

And I had already learned a lot of success principles, I guess you could say. And so I actually grew very fast as a blogger. And that's what took me to the medium.com. And I grew. And so essentially over the from 2015 to 2017, I grew enormously. As a blogger and was able to get a book deal and be able to start providing for my family, I mean, that was essentially my dream

was to become a professional author and to be able to provide for my family. At the time, my wife and I had three foster kids. We've adopted them since and et cetera. But so essentially, I got a multi-six figure book deal to write a book. I'm living my dreams. It all happens way faster than I thought.

And anyways, into early 2018, honestly, it was March of 2018, the book comes out. And I did have way in my head, like I'd built everything up in my head, that it needed to be a certain level, it needed to be a New York Times best seller. And I admittedly as well, threw so much money at it. Like that, early 2018 was the first year I started to make, like, pretty dang good money, and I threw a lot of it at that book. And I was just throwing everything,

kitchen sink at it. And yeah, it just didn't end up launching and exploding the way I thought it would. Like, I just expected it would go a certain way, because most everything to that point, in terms of like my writing and my growth just it was all going very, very well. And so yeah, it didn't hit the goal.

And for probably four or five months, I was in a very deep depression, very deep slump and kind of back to the idea of the gap in the game. Now it's kind of funny that I launch a book. I mean, I'm a professional author. I release my first book. Like, I've never written a full book before. I release this book and to my publisher, they were very happy with the results. But for me and my head, I just totally felt like a loser. And yeah, I mean, I guess from there, I mean, if you want me to, I could explain the gap in the

game. But yeah, I mean, that's basically where I was at. I guess I've learned to measure my own self differently. So the gap in the game is something I learned from Dan Sullivan. I read his little book on the subject maybe actually was in 2018. I read his little book and I was still blogging back then and it was just an idea I loved. If I ever get a chance to write books with Dan Sullivan, I'm going to make this a major book. And the idea is very simple. It's basically the idea that as a person, you're, you're, we all feel happier, sad based on how we measure ourselves and how we measure our experiences. The reason I went into a deep depression after I had made a monumental achievement. I mean, I'd never done that before. It was totally new. And yet I felt like a loser because I was in

the gap. I was measuring what was against what I thought it should be, which is an ideal. When you're in the gap, you're measuring yourself against your ideals, which you're always changing, always moving. Whereas the gain is the opposite. You measure yourself backward against where you were before. Truth was, as I was way further than I'd ever been. And if I was just measuring myself backward against my past self, competing only against my past self, I was radically further than I ever was, and I just did something huge. I'm learning, and I've learned over the years to be more in the game, and it's a far more enjoyable, far happier experience.

Yeah, and I'd love to kind of dig deeper on this. If you can help us understand the difference between ideals and goals, and why that matters with all of this. So ideals are very, they're very ephemeral. Like they're not actually tangible. Like, and so like how, how I learned it from Dan is, ideals are like the horizon in the desert. Like you can see him out there and like,

but every time you take a few steps forward, the horizon keeps going. And in America, we're actually trained to always be pursuing happiness. That's even in the Declaration of Independence, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And so we're very big on ideals in America, which is good. Like, it's good to have ideals. It's good to be idealistic. There's nothing wrong with ideals. The problem is, is that they're immaterial. I think a definition of ideal is whatever you, whatever you believe is perfection. So when you're in the gap, you're literally measuring yourself against your view of perfection. But back to the idea of the horizon, that view is never endingly changing.

My former self would have felt like it was perfection just to get a book deal. But then once I got there, the ideal changed, the horizon moved. And so if you're always measuring yourself against a moving target, and also a moving target that by definition is unreachable, you can't actually reach an ideal. It's an ideal. But if you're always measuring yourself against it, then you never feel like you've moved anywhere. That's actually why we wrote the book is because high achievers by nature have huge ideals, but they also usually measure themselves against them. And our culture is trained that way.

Social media trains us to have ideals and to always be comparing ourselves externally. And sometimes ideals are other people. But if you're always measuring yourself against something that's way up ahead and also something that you can never actually reach, then what that does for you internally is it feels like you've never made any progress at all.

It also devalues everything you've done to that point. And so whenever you're in the gap, it does not matter how much you've achieved. It doesn't matter if you're living way, way, way beyond the dreams of anything you ever thought you would do, you actually feel like you've made no progress at all. And you feel like a loser and you've devalued not only your current self, you've devalued everything that got you here. And so ideals are beautiful.

They're just not useful as a measurement tool. They're useful as a direction tool. Goals are far more concrete. Obviously, you can have goals that you set that move you toward your ideals. And so goals are specific. They're concrete. They're mile markers on a journey.

And then the useful thing to do with your goals is to obviously become increasingly intrinsically motivated towards the goals you set, and even the standards you set for yourself, that they're less about what anyone else thinks, what anyone else wants, and you actually get better at doing that when you just start measuring your progress backwards.

So like I'll set a goal for myself. I've got huge goals for 2023, but in terms of where I'm measuring myself, and in terms of my benchmark, like my benchmark for 2023 is what I accomplished in 2022. Like I accomplished some cool things, but I'm using that since it's tangible. Ideals are not tangible.

Like I have concrete evidence of what I did in 2022 and I can use that not only to propel me forward, but I can also use that to say, what do I wanna do that's even gonna be bigger and more exciting? Yeah. So you can just measure yourself backwards and use that as the baseline for what you can do.

Yeah. So I hear you saying a couple big ideas here. The first one is ideals are a moving target. You're never going to get there. So you're never going to be happy trying to go towards those ideals or because you're never going to actually achieve that. You can't actually achieve your ideal and it's always moving further and further as you become more successful. Second is comparing yourselves to other people that never helps in terms of our mindset or happiness. And then I hear you saying that goals can be tangible and you can have mile markers and it's okay to have goals, but you need to make sure that you're judging your progress on those goals based on your past, not necessarily how far you are from your ideal place. I know I probably didn't say it as good as you,

but that's basically what I'm gathering from. No, you broke it down beautifully. I think that this is one of the main problems with the narratives. Like, there's a lot of narratives about how you shouldn't have goals. Obviously, I think it's impossible to not have goals. I think human beings, we can't

not have a goal. That's part of being intentional, but the problem is the measurement. I mean, even if I had hit my goal, I would have gone into the gap. I would have moved the target. So even if I had hit the New York Times bestseller list from a gap perspective, I still would have felt terrible about myself because I would have moved the target. The target would have been, well, why wasn't I on it for four weeks? Why wasn't I number one New York Times Festival? Yeah. Yeah, or why didn't I hit number one? So it doesn't even, whether you hit the goal or not, doesn't even matter. If you're in the gap, it will never have been enough because the target will keep changing and you're measuring yourself

against something that's immeasurable and something that's external and always changing. And so, yeah, whether it's other people that you're measuring yourself against or whether it's just your inflated ideals, that's the point is that you won't be happy hitting or not hitting your goals if you stay in the gap. That's just the key. Yeah. So then on the flip side, let's talk about gain thinking. What does it look like to have gain thinking or to practice gain thinking?

I look at gain thinking two ways. One is it's a way of measuring your progress and measuring your experiences. For me, for example, I've had a number of experiences already today, even just to this point. Some of them went to plans and some of them didn't go to plans. If I'm in the game, I'm measuring what actually did happen. I'm measuring myself backwards. I'm measuring what actually did happen and I'm measuring myself backwards. I'm only measuring myself against where I was before and the truth is I'm always ahead of my past self.

Even if things go backwards seemingly, like even if I lose my leg in a car accident, right? Like a lot of bad things can seemingly happen, but if you're in the game, you are finding the gains in your creating gains from your experiences. I consider it your squeezing as much juice out of your experiences as possible. You're also always choosing to become better as a result.

No matter what happens to you, you're in the gain, so everything ultimately happens for you. So I guess it's really two big ideas. One is it's measuring yourself backward against where you were before and always realizing that you are further than you were before and that the only thing I'm actually measuring myself against is myself, which is where I was before. So, that's number one, is just measuring yourself backwards. The second one is literally turning everything that happens to you into something that happens

for you. So, anything, no matter what it was, you can actually gain and grow from it. And if you do, then you're always getting better. You're always learning from every experience. Whereas if you're in the gap, then your past becomes a problem. From like a psychology standpoint, what you need to be happy in the present is you need a happy past and an exciting future. And the past is literally a meaning. And so the gain is just a lens of using your, or of transforming your past into more gains, more learning, even from your most extreme traumas, you can learn to turn those into gains so that you're constantly better and even grateful for them, which is what psychologists would call post-traumatic

growth. So it's really just those two things. I'm only measuring myself against myself backward, and I'm literally turning every experience into my gain. And we're going to touch on post-traumatic growth later on in this interview, but first I want to get into your new book, your latest book, Be Your Future Self Now. I think this is a great tie-in. So in your book, you say it's not about becoming our future selves. It's actually about being our future selves. Now, I think we just got a good foundation of gap thinking, gain thinking. Here you are telling us basically,

let's not compare our progress to our ideals, but you're also not opposed to the fact of thinking in a futuristic way or thinking about our future. It's not like you're saying, don't think about your future at all. It's just that you've got to be your future self. It's not about becoming your future self in the gap between where you are and, you know, and where you want to be. So tell us about how future self is sort of related to this gap in game thinking, because I have a feeling that you really got the inspiration from this other book after reading both of them. This is a really interesting concept in psychology. So like, when typically the way we look at time, as we look at it as past, present, and future,

and we kind of look at it sequentially. So, and we also look at it chronologically, like my past is behind me. There's no way I can get back there. My present is now in the futures up ahead of me. I can never, I'll never actually be able to go into the future all there is is really now. From a psychology standpoint,

that's not how psychologists view time. Psychologists don't view time sequentially. We actually view it holistically. So what I mean by that is that the past is currently existing in my life. Like, who I'm being right now is a complete amalgamation of my views of my past, my experiences of my past. We even today were talking about us having a conversation four years ago. And so like, my past is of course influencing me right now and my narration of the past, my story of the past, the feelings I have toward my past, the anchors I may have in my past that are unresolved,

call it trauma or whatever, but also my goals are heavily influencing me. Anyone who's listening to this is listening to it for a reason. They're listening to it because they feel like this is gonna help them contribute to their goals or help them move forward in their lives. And so everything about my life right now is a combination of my feelings and my perspectives of my past and also my excitement or my feelings towards the future. And so they're certainly not mutually exclusive in terms of being

in the game, but also having a future oriented mindset. Most people who read the gap in the game are very future oriented people. The game doesn't stop you, I guess, from having a future. Actually, in my perspective, whenever I'm living in the game, it actually helps me to be more... it helps me to have a future that's more genuinely coming from my own self rather than something that's coming from the outside. Usually, people's goals and their... call it their standards or their ideals, actually were fed to them by culture, by society. They don't even, you know, the future that they want actually

isn't genuinely intrinsically motivated. And so for me, tapping into the game just helps me to stop worrying about the outside world as much, stop competing with other people. And so in terms of future self, I guess I would say in simple terms, we all have a future self. What the

research shows is that most people, especially the older they get, they stop thinking about their future self very much. Most people probably 30 and above assume that even their future self, 10, 20 or 30 years from now, is mostly going to be the same person they are today. So most people don't have huge imagination towards their future self. What the research does show is that your future self is going to be a wildly different person than you think. Even in five or ten years from now, it's going to be hard to fully predict who your future self will be.

But if you start imagining it, start thinking about it and importantly getting really connected to your future self, who you want to be in the future, you can then start using obviously your vision of your future self to guide and direct who you're going to be today, and you can be be in the future. You can then start using, obviously, your vision of your future self to guide and direct who you're going to be today, and you can be extremely intentional about it. And so, from my standpoint, the best thing to do is get really clear and connected to your future self, who you want to be, get very specific about that,

and then use that, I guess you could say, the North Star for directing everything you're doing here and now, and each and every day as you're moving forward, you're measuring yourself against where you were before. You're measuring yourself backwards, and you're always seeing that by increasingly living intentionally as your future self, you're always out growing your past self.

I do this daily. I mean, if I even look at where I was a week ago, I am not the same person I was last week. I've changed a lot, I've grown a lot. I know a ton of things my past self doesn't didn't know. And so I'm never my past self and I'm always growing into my future self. And that's kind of how I see it. Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors. Young and profitors, do you have a brilliant business idea but you don't know how to move

forward with it? Going into debt for a four-year degree isn't the only path to success. Instead, learn everything you need to know about running a business for free by listening to the Millionaire University podcast. The Millionaire University podcast is a show that's changing the game for aspiring entrepreneurs. Hosted by Justin and Tara Williams, it's the ultimate resource for those who want to run a successful business and graduate rich, not broke. Justin and Tara started from Square One, just like you and me.

They faced lows and dug themselves out of huge debt. Now they're financially free and they're sharing their hard-earned lessons with all of us. That's right, millionaire university will teach you everything you need to know about starting and growing a successful business. No degrees required. In each episode, you'll gain invaluable to know about starting and growing a successful business. No degrees required. In each episode you'll gain invaluable insights from seasoned entrepreneurs and mentors who

truly understand what it takes to succeed. From topics like how to start a software business without creating your own software, to more broad discussions such as eight businesses you can start tomorrow to make 10K plus month, this podcast has it all. So don't wait, now is a time to turn your business idea into a reality by listening to the Millionaire University podcast. New episodes drop Mondays and Thursdays. Find the Millionaire University podcast on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Yeah, something that I thought was really interesting when I was reading your work is this concept of you actually thinking of your future self as a completely different person. And I thought was really interesting when I was reading your work is this concept of you actually thinking of your future self as a completely different person. And I thought that was really eye-opening because for one, I feel like you give yourself some more grace when you think of your past and your future self as a different person. It's like you start to feel empathy for yourself and you're not so hard on yourself depending on what outcomes end up happening. So I'd love to understand the importance of actually thinking of yourself as different present self, future self, even past self.

I love what you're saying. And if you're such a good interviewer, but if there's ever anything like you want to continue, I mean, I just love what you're saying. But so as an example, like I would say this year in 2022, I've had some of my biggest wins and I've had also some of my biggest mistakes. But I know that I'm not the same person I was, again, like I said, even a few weeks ago, I'm not mad at my past self, though. Like my past self was coming from a different place.

And so I think it's always good to have compassion and empathy towards your former self because you now know so many things that they didn't know. You know, you're in a different place. You see things differently. And so one, I think it's very beautiful to recognize you're not the same person as you were in the past. And to have only empathy towards your past, there's no upsides to having bad or negative emotions towards your past. It does nothing for your future. It does nothing for your present. And so always transforming your past into gains

and greater perspective, learning. That is, again, back to post-traumatic growth. It's that you are grateful. Like the idea of traumas, really, that something happened to your past and you feel like you're now in some way in, like inferior, you've gone backwards. You're also crippled in some way because of what happened, whereas the opposite is that now you're empowered because of what happened. So I guess that's one. In terms of always seeing your future self as a different person, to me, what that does is it propels a growth mindset.

The definition of a fixed mindset is that you've purely defined who you are based on your past, and then you assume that who you are now is who you're always going to be. So you have a fixed mindset. You don't think you're going to change. You've already kind of painted your future self into a box that your future self is the exact person you are today. And so that, I mean, what the research shows is that leads to kind of having a fragile or a brittle approach to life where you're too afraid to fail because you're trying to prove yourself. Whereas if I know that my future self a week from now is going to be different, they're going to be way more knowledgeable, they're going to be less ignorant.

Then that gives me right now a lot of grace. Like you said, I don't have to have all the answers right now. Like one of my favorite models for this, it comes from Bernat Brown's book, The Atlas of the Heart, where she said, you're either trying to be right or you're trying to get it right. And if you're trying to be right, that's the definition of a fixed where she said, you're either trying to be right or you're trying to get it right. And if you're trying to be right, that's the definition of a fixed mindset. Like you're trying to prove your current self because your future self isn't gonna be any different.

Like you've already, you're kind of stuck. Whereas if you're just trying to get it right, I know I'm gonna make a lot of mistakes. I know I don't have all the answers now and I know my future self's gonna have better perspectives. And once I get there, they're gonna be blown away at how different they are from who I am today.

But also, they're always gonna be trying to figure it out. Like from who I am today. But also, they're always going to be trying to figure it out. Like you're always trying to get it right. And you're always growing and changing. And so it just leads you to not needing to have it all figured out. Instead, you're just in a state of learning, which is a growth mindset. Yeah. And something that I think is really interesting is that it's actually hard to imagine ourselves as a future self. I think some people are better than others, but a lot of people have trouble imagining who they are in the future.

Can you talk to us about why that is? The main reason that people have a hard time, and this is something that Daniel Gilbert said, he's a Harvard psychologist who's been studying this concept for 20 years, and he actually gave a mainstayage TED talk called the psychology of your future self back in 2014, but he said that the reason people have a hard time imagining their future self is because they don't do it Like they literally don't take the time if anyone here was sitting listening

I would ask in the last Seven days how much time have you spent imagining your future self? How much time have you spent journaling and thinking about it? My guess is is that the average listener and maybe this group would be different because these are young people who are actually, you know, have big visions. But I'd say the average person who struggles to think about this, the main reason is just because they're not taking the time to think about it. Imagination is very much a skill. It's a skill that you can get better and better at. There's kind of levels to seeing your future self. The first one is honestly just connecting with your future self

and having empathy for them. Just like you would want to have empathy for your past self, a crucial first step to connecting to your future self is having empathy that your future self is a real person. They're coming from a certain place and they're being impacted by what you do. And so like, if just a guy would have empathy for another person, if I was more emotionally intelligent, I would realize that they're coming from a different place than me. They've got different perspectives, different values, different goals. They're in a different situation. I would want to start by understanding.

But then you go from connecting to getting really vivid where it's like, you now start to kind of see the context of your future self. And obviously, you get to create that. Like your future self is going to be different from mine. And I get to choose in large part what I want my future self to look like. And so I think you just take the time to think, who do I want my future self to be in five or 10 years? What do I want that to look like?

What's going to be really important to my future self? What's going to be really important to them that I should be paying attention to now. I think it's just taking the time to really think about it and putting yourself in a situation like just as one simple example. Let me just put myself into my future self shoes, call it in 2030. So 2030 is eight years away.

One way of putting myself into that person's shoes is literally just thinking things through. So I know that it's a little crazy for a lot of people, but I have six kids. And the oldest one is 15, the youngest one is two. So I know that my 15 year old in eight years from now is gonna be 23. So that's one thing is like, okay,

I'm gonna have a 23 year old son. My youngest is gonna be 10. And so I'm just starting to actually start to think about that. I'll be 10 years older. What do I want that to look like? Where do I want to be? What do I want to be focused on? What's going to be really important to me then?

Like literally starting to put yourself in the shoes and start to think about it. And then starting to think, what are the most important things that I could do now that would set that future self up? I know that and you can do it in shorter time frames, but it's literally just actually putting concrete around it and context to really start thinking about it. Yeah. So the related to this in your book you say that your identity is what you're most committed to and it's your identity that actually drives your behaviors or your future identity. Can you talk to us about that?

Yeah, so identity is such an interesting concept and I really do think it's kind of the driver of everything, but then the question is, well, what drives identity? And identity is really actually driven by what your goals are, what you're most committed to. When I say it's what you're most committed to, it's really two things. It's the story that you're most committed to in terms of your past, present, and future. Like we all have a story about our past and who we were and what led us to this point. We have a story about who we are now and we also have a story for our future. And so that's one commitment is the story or the narrative you have. The second one is actually your standards. So your standards as a person are what you're committed to.

Like we all have standards. Like I'll give an example. Like I was recently back home visiting and I have a cousin who's been living at my dad's house for, call it five years. He's a cousin that lives in my dad's house now And he's one of those people who plays World of Warcraft literally like all day unless he's at work or sleeping And actually honestly, that's how I used to be I used to be that way Where I played video games like 16 hours a day But it was interesting because I was talking to him and I was just catching up with him And I was just asking him what was going on in the game because that's kind of the main thing he does. And he said, well, I recently left my group, my guild. It's a guild in this online game. And I said, well, why did you leave the guild? And he

said, because they're just not up to my standard. I have bigger goals that I want to achieve in the game. And there's, there's things I want to do. And I just can't do it in this group. And he's one of those people who's like at the top of the top of the top in this game. And I said that was interesting that his standard for himself is really high in this game. And I said that was interesting that his standard for himself is really high in the game. Like I have zero standards for myself in that game because it's not valuable to me. Like it's not what I value.

So I have no standards there. But the question is, what where are my standards? Where do I actually care and how high are my standards in those areas? And your standard does reflect what you're committed to. So like he showed that he was committed to something more, which is why he left that group because the standards were higher. So as you elevate your standards and your story, you change your identity. And so your standards are just whatever you hold yourself to. That could be in your finances, it could

be in your health. And when you raise the standards and it's a true commitment, you don't go back below those standards. You start saying no to everything that's below those and it stops resonating with your identity because your standards and your identity are pretty much the same thing. So as you elevate your standards, you no longer can go back to doing what you were doing before because it just doesn't resonate with your identity anymore. There's things that I was even saying yes to call it a few months ago, which would be unfathomable to me now. Like, it just doesn't fit with what's acceptable,

or even with what's relevant to me anymore, because it no longer fits the standard. Yeah, so basically it's having this very clear vivid picture of your future self. And then whenever you have decisions in terms of how you act or the things that you do, you're always being true to your future self. And it helps you basically be able to say no more often and make the decisions that will be good to your future self or what is aligned to your future self.

Yeah. When you start to make your future self the standard, then it becomes a massive filtering tool where it's like, what would my future self do? Or if I was my future self now, how would they approach this? And how would my future self want me to do this? We were talking about Victor Frankel earlier in this call, and that's literally what Victor Frankel invited people to do. He said, I want you to imagine this moment that you're sitting in right now and imagine that you had already lived it. So whatever you're doing, you know, let's just call it your own your way home from work and you're about to go home from work. So let's just imagine that this moment right now

has already passed and you acted poorly in your having to deal with the consequences of whatever it is you're gonna do, but now you get to come back and relive it again and you get to actually do it differently and better. Like, and so that's just using your future self as the standard, as the way for operating. Like I know that my future self wants the best for me

and also wants me to be my best. And so if I start to make my future self the standard, then all of a sudden, I'm gonna start making a lot better decisions in the present because not only am I thinking about what's best for me and my future, but I'm now using that as the tool for making the best decisions now, whether that's, call it, I'm at home. And I could be engaging with my kids on a really high level, which is what my future self

would probably want me to do. But instead, I'm just kind of spacing out, like sitting on my phone, like, if I'm using my future self as the standard and my future self being what would be ultimately best for me and what I value most it becomes a lot easier to make the decision here now to do what's best for the present and the future. Your life is just willy-nilly, right? You're just doing things to do them. You don't have a clear goal. It's chaotic. So what's the downside of not even having a future self vision? Yeah, so if you don't know who your future self is,

in any degree, if you're absolutely not connected to your future self at all, the extreme end of that, and like you can see this, the extreme end of being disconnected to your future self is someone who has zero perspective of consequences. They're so out of touch. Like, and I've seen this even with my kids, where it's like, they're acting so poorly, like right before bed, sometimes as a family.

Like, if they do certain things like our night routine really well, sometimes we'll like watch like half a movie or something like that before bed. And like we will tell them sometimes like if you do the routine really well, we'll like have ice cream and watch a movie, you know, for like 40 minutes. And then that, you know, sometimes if they're not connected to that future self, even 45 minutes into the future, like they will do absolute terrible things that then lead us to saying, nope, can't do it. And then they throw a fit. They're like, they can't even believe that they lost

what they did, but they were so disconnected to what they were doing in the consequences. And like, this is what happens for extreme addicts, where like, you do something and you're so disconnected from the consequences that you're shocked when all of a sudden, like, everything's falling apart. And so, like, one degree of looking at this is, like, if you are so disconnected

from your behavior and reality being consequences, which is what my kids were, like, they're acting so opposite to the results that they want or think that they want, but they don't even know it. It's like, are you aware that what you're doing right now is literally sabotaging you in 10 minutes from now and you're about to throw a fit and they don't see it. Like, that is utter blindness. But the other angle, which is kind of more the direction you were going was, it's kind of like the Alice in Wonderland thing where Alice meets the cat and the cat says,

well, Alice says, which way should I go? Because there's two different paths. And the cat says, well, that depends on where you want to go. And she says, well, I don't know where I'm going. And so he says, then you can literally go any direction you want. Because if you don't know where you want to go, if you don't have a destination in mind, then it literally doesn't matter what you do today. That's part of, I guess, what you would say is being connected to your future self is once you get specific about where you want to go, about what you

want, then you can start to formulate pathways of getting there. But if you have absolutely no direction, no destination, then it does not matter what you do here and now. You're essentially rudderless. Your future self becomes the anchor and it becomes the compass to like the decisions you make here and now. that's that's actually literally what all the research shows now and by the way the psychology today magazine that just came out in September and October was all about future self and about the person you're going to be in the future because this topic is becoming so so big in psychology and even therapy, like therapists are finding that there's really no way we can help someone change long term without getting them connected to their future self. Because if they're not thinking about who they want to be, it's very hard to change without

a goal or without a why. That then just becomes behavior change, which is kind of willpower focused, and you can't really sustain that without a direction. And so, I would say it's very difficult to be intentional if you don't have a future self you're working towards. Yeah, I interview really successful people all the time like yourself. I had Alex Ramozzi on the show

who's like everybody's new favorite sales and marketing entrepreneur. And we were talking about focus, and this idea of focus is becoming such a big theme lately. I've been doing podcasting for almost five years now. And more and more, it just sounds like people saying, you need to get focused. If you're unfocused, if you're unprioritized, you're not going to really achieve extraordinary success. Like you can be successful, of course, but to really, you know, become that 1% Scott Galloway was on

and said the same thing. And so what you're saying is aligned to that. Understanding your future self is having this extreme focus of who you want to be, right? And the steps you're going to take to get there because you understand who you want to be. And that target's always moving, but you're always taking the actions that's going to help your future self, right? Really interesting. And then just to let you know of another person who's thinking about this, but in a different way, whom I'm about to interview is William Mack Skull. You probably know him, right?

I don't know him. Oh, you don't? Okay, so William Mack Skull, he was behind effective altruism. Okay, I know who you're talking about. Yeah, I know I actually know who you're talking about. Yeah, he not only wants to think about people to think about their own self. He wants everybody to think about the whole world's future selves, right?

Yeah. Like humans in general, treating future humans as if they're people now and making decisions for future humans. We don't need to get on that tangent, but I'm definitely going to bring you up in that conversation because it's so interesting. No, I do actually know who you're talking about now. I think his book's called What do we Ode the Future, right? Yes. Yeah, and it's all about long-termism.

I mean, to me, that's a massive view of empathy towards our future selves. And yeah, it's beautiful. Exactly, but in just a broader perspective. So it's just so interesting that you both are kind of talking about those. And like you said, it's becoming a theme. So let's tie this all together with an example. When you talk about Mr. Beast in your book, I believe. And so I'd love to understand how Mr. Beast

used this concept to be a 17 year old kid, no money, no skills to one of the most famous people in the world. So this was really interesting to me. I was shocked when it happened, because I was writing Be or future self now. So I wrote a book called Personality isn't permanent. And I did not know about the future self research, even though like I had

already done a PhD, it was still kind of a growing, they call it like a branch or a vein of research. Like it was a topic I'd never really heard of. And it was kind of small, but it was burgeoning, meaning it was growing. And anyways, while I was writing that book, call it End of 2019, early 2020, I fell upon the research on future self. And I was like, oh my goodness, why have I never heard of this before?

Like why have I never even seen this? Why have I never heard people talking about this, whether it's in psychology or in self development or anything, like why is this a new idea? It seems like this is like the grounding of all self-development ideas and also psychology. But anyways, I knew I wanted to write a book on it, and so I was doing all sorts of research on it while writing other books, and then all of a sudden in 2020,

and I had known who Mr. Beast was, just because I mean, I like YouTube, I was watching it, and he's this interesting figure, right? Doing these huge outlandish videos, and I was mostly watching them with my kids and just blown away by what he was doing. And then all of a sudden in October, so it's an October of 2020, a video comes up

and it's called High Me in Five Years. And it's got a picture of like a younger version of Mr. Beast, Jimmy Donaldson, right? And it's sketchy. Like I click the video and it's him talking as a 17-year-old kid in 2015. It's filmed in 2015 and he's saying, hi, you know, whenever you see this video, I just want to let you know like it's 2015. I'm filming this video for my room. I should be studying for my history test, but I just wanted to take this minute

and have a conversation with myself in five years from now. And he basically just starts talking to his future self. It's like two minutes long. It's really rough filmed from a really bad camera. He shows where he's at with his YouTube channel. I think he's got like 8,000 subscribers. And basically he just talks about his future self. He's like, where do I want to be in five years? Like, who do I think I'm gonna be in five years?

And he's just kind of having this intimate personal conversation with his future self in public. So basically what happened, you know, as you scroll way back in time through his channel, you actually see that he did this multiple times, but he did it all the same night. So it was in October. It was well, you know, if you use the exact date, it was October 4th of 2015. And he was 17 years old. And he what he ended up doing, I don't know where he got the idea, but he filmed four different future self videos.

Each of them were like two minutes long. So the first one was, where do I want to be? He said, hi me in six months or something like that. And so he was talking to his future self six months into the future and just saying where, mostly because his obsession, which as you can see whatever you focus on expands, he got very good at YouTube. But most of his future self was related to like himself as a YouTuber. You know, he wanted to be a famous YouTuber. He wanted to be the biggest YouTuber in the world.

And so like as he's talking to his future self six months into the future, he's like, you know, if I have 20,000 subscribers, it's gonna be absolutely amazing and stuff like that. If I don't, it's gonna be embarrassing. So he did one for six months out, one for a year out. I think he did one for five years out and then he did a 10 year all that night. And so obviously none of us even will see. It'll be really ridiculous to see where he's at in 2025. I guess that's only three years away now that we think about it. But basically all of those videos were only two minutes long.

And what he did is he filmed them all in one place, one time he probably took 10 or 15 minutes to film the four videos. You know, he set them to go publish on his YouTube channel, but he set them to go into their corresponding times. And so he set the six month one to go live, six months in the future, the one one one year one to go live a year into the future, the five year one. And so on October 4th of 2020, when the video just automatically went live because he had said it to go live five years into the future,

he actually had forgotten that he had made that video. Like it was a shock to him. But in that video, he said he wanted to have a million YouTube subscribers and he wouldn't have even been able to fathom what it would have been like to have a million subscribers. Well, when the video actually went live in 2020, his channel had like 45 million subscribers.

By that point, he was incomparably a different person. He had a huge business. He was like, had a big team. He was all of his videos were getting like tens of millions, sometimes hundreds of millions of views. And even since then, now, you know, he's got multiple channels and he's doing so many things. It's even ridiculous.

But I mean, he's just an interesting example of someone who was very public about his future self, not afraid of admitting his future self. And you can actually see when you watch his old videos before that day, October 4th of 2015, you can see that obviously he got really clear and committed to his future self because the videos started changing after that time. And his growth started to like really like accelerate. And so he's just someone who is obviously connected to commit to his future self.

He used his future self as the basis for what he did. He was talking to his future self in public. And that was obviously his identity that drove him forward. And he continued to raise his standard for who he became and what he did. So he's just a brilliant example of it. We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors. Your dog is an important part of your family. Don't settle when it comes to their health.

Make the switch to fresh food made with real ingredients that are backed by science with nom nom nom delivers fresh dog food that is personalized to your dog's individual needs. Each portion is tailored to ensure your dog gets the nutrition they need so you can watch them thrive. Nom-nom's ingredients are cooked individually and then mixed together because science tells us that every protein, carb, and veggie has different cooking times and methods. This packs in all the vitamins and minerals your dog needs so they truly get the most out of every single bite.

And nom-nom is completely free of additives, fillers, and mystery ingredients that contribute to bloating and low energy. Your dog deserves only the best, and Nom Nom delivers just that. Their nutrient packed recipes are crafted by board certified veterinary nutritionists, made fresh and shipped to your door. Absolutely free. Nom Nom meals started just $2.40, and every meal is cooked in company-owned kitchens right here in the US, and they've already delivered over 40

million meals, inspiring clean bowls and wagging tails everywhere. Ever since I started feeding my dog Nom-nom, he's been so much more energetic, and he's getting older, he's a senior dog, but now we've been going on longer walks, and he's much more playful. He used to be pretty sluggish and sleeping all the time, but I've definitely noticed a major improvement since I started feeding him nom nom. And the best part, they offer a money back guarantee. If your dog's tail isn't wagging within 30 days, they'll refund your first order. No fillers, no nonsense, just nom nom. Go right now for 50% off your no risk 2 week trial at trinom.com.shap. That's trinom.nom.com.shap for 50% off trinom.com.

slash.yap. Hear that sound, young and profitors? You should know that sound by now, but in case you don't, that's the sound of another sale on Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform that's revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide. Whether you sell edgy t-shirts or offer an educational course like me, Shopify simplifies selling online and in-person so you can focus on successfully growing your business. Shopify is packed with industry leading tools that are ready to ignite your growth, giving you complete control over your business and brand,

without having to learn any new skills in design or code. And Shopify grows with you no matter how big your business gets. Thanks to an endless list of integrations and third-party apps, anything you can think of from on-demand printing to accounting to chatbots, Shopify has everything you need to revolutionize your business. If you're a regular listener, you probably know that I use Shopify to sell my LinkedIn secrets masterclass. Setting up my Shopify store just took me a few days. I didn't have to worry about my website and how I was going to collect payments and how I was going to trigger abandoned cart emails and all these things that Shopify does for me was just a click of a button, even setting up my chat bot was just a click of a button.

It was so easy to do. Like I said, just took a couple of days and so it just allowed me to focus on my actual product and making sure my LinkedIn masterclass was the best it could be and I was able to focus on my marketing. So Shopify really, really helped me make sure that my masterclass was gonna be a success right off the bat in enabled focus.

And focus is everything when it comes to entrepreneurship. With Shopify single dashboard, I can manage my orders and my payments from anywhere in the world. And like I said, it's one of my favorite things to do every day is check my Shopify dashboard. It is a rush of dopamine to see all those blinking lights around the world showing me where everybody is logging on on the site.

I love it. I highly recommend it. Shopify is a platform that I use every single day and it can take your business to the next level. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopfied.com.sash profiting. Again, go to shopfied.com-profiting, all lowercase, to take your business to the next level today. Again, that shopfied.com-profiting, shopfied.com-profiting,

all lowercase. This is Possibility Powered by Shopify. Yeah, bam. If you're ready to take your business to new heights, break through to the six or seven figure mark or learn from the world's most successful people, look no further because the Kelly Roach show has got you covered. Kelly Roach is a best-selling author, a top-ranked podcast host, and an extremely talented marketer. She's the owner of Not One, but six thriving companies, and now she's ready to share her knowledge

and experience with you on the Kelly Roach show. Kelly is an inspirational entrepreneur and I highly respect her. She's been a guest on YAP. She was a former social client. She's a podcast client. And I remember when she came on Young and Profiting and she talked about her conviction marketing framework, it was like mind blowing to me. I remember immediately implementing what she taught me in the interview in my company and the marketing efforts that we were doing. And as a marketer, I really, really respect all Kelly has done, all Kelly has built. In the corporate world, Kelly secured seven promotions in just eight years, but she didn't just stop there. She was working in 95. And at the same time, she built her eight figure company as a side hustle and eventually took it and made her full-time hustle, and her strategic business goals

led her to win the prestigious Inc. 500 award for the fastest growing business in the United States. She's built an empire, she's earned a life-changing wealth. And on top of all that, she maintains a happy marriage and a healthy home life. On the Kelly Road Show, you'll learn that it's possible to have it all. Tune into the Kelly Road Show as she unveils her secrets for growing your business. It doesn't matter if you're just starting out in your career or if you're already a seasoned entrepreneur. In each episode, Kelly shares the truth about what it takes to create rapid, exponential growth. Unlock your potential, unleash your success, and start living your dream life today.

Tune into the Kelly Road Show available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Yeah, and what a great idea in terms of like shooting videos, basically speaking to your future self, what a great kind of exercise. With no apology, like no embarrassment, like he doesn't care. And I think that's a huge thing, is to not be ashamed of your future self. So many people are afraid to admit what they want. Yeah. How about in terms of the timeline of your future self?

Should we think about ourselves five years from now, ten years from now, do we want to think of a range? What's your suggestion there? So this is the beautiful part about time psychologically, is that you can use it however you want. One of the areas, and we don't have to go too deep into this in the book, but like, obviously, a lot of people believe in God. And so, a lot of people believe in their future self after this life.

And so, like, obviously, a lot of people are thinking about the after life and they're using their views of that to dictate their decisions now. So, like, you can go as far into the future as you want. You can go beyond this life if you want, and you can think about your future self there and learn about that, which a lot of people do. And that influences a lot of their decisions and the meaning in their life. You know, Steven Covey had the old concept

of imagining your 80th birthday party and like what you want your life to be like on your 80th birthday party. Who do you want to be there? What do you want people to talk about your life about? So like, you can think way ahead and think big picture, you know, and expand that out and really start to think, like, what will really have mattered at the end of my life?

Like, what matters? And ideally, you spend most of your time on the things which matter, not on the things which don't. But in terms of hyper practicality, I think it's good to build your future self around various timelines, like various important anchor moments. And so like I gave you 20, 30 on purpose. That wasn't an accident.

The reason I gave you 20, 30 is because in eight years from now, the youngest one that we adopted. So we adopted three kids and then we had three of our own. And the youngest one that we adopted is currently 11 years old. In 2030, he will turn 18. And so the older two will be gone, he will be leaving in 2030. And that is going to be a big moment for me, my wife and our younger

three kids, because chances are we're going to move from Florida, like when he moves. We live in Florida. We might not, you know, our future selves might have different plans, but that's kind of a huge anchor moment for my future self, for my family's future self, is like, our older three kids are going to leave. Our younger ones are much younger than the ones we adopted. So like, me and my wife have spent some time thinking about like, what's going to happen when Logan leaves? Like, where are we going to go become nomadic and like travel the world, live in different

countries? And so like, we're starting to think about our future self on that timeline because there's a key moment there. Like, there's a key anchor to that. And so like, it's good to think about your future self in terms of key anchor, anchoring times, because then you can really start to map out. Like, what do I want to see happen in the next eight years? And like, where would I like to be when Logan leaves?

Like, I can really think big on an eight year scale. Like, I can do a lot of things between now and 2030 when he leaves. In terms of super practicality, I think three years in terms of tangible goals, three years is a really good timeline for really achieving big specific things. You and I over the last three years, it's been a little over three years now, but in terms of you three years ago, if you're like, how big do you want to see your podcast go? Like over three years, you can grow enormously toward a very specific goal. Yeah. And so thinking in terms of like, if I want to grow really big in a very specific direction, call it me as an author, you as a podcast, someone in their

finances, someone towards skills, three years, you can get really specific and you can still grow like 10x, 100x, a thousand x big in a certain direction. So I think three years or less in terms of really big sprints towards big goals. I love that. I think that's super, super helpful. Okay, so I wanna move into purpose and understanding how purpose is related to all of this.

And so I think a good place to start would be understanding the levels of every behavior. You say it's the what, the why, and the how. Can you talk to us about how your why really drives the what and the how? Yeah, so the why is the reason for doing it. This is where you start to become intentional. So as an example, if someone's listening to this podcast,

my question would be, well, why are you listening to it? And the why would then highlight what you're ultimately trying to do and what you ultimately value? Like, everyone's gonna have a different why for why we're doing this. You have a different why for interviewing me as I have for being interviewed, right?

And so it's important to clarify and understand what the why is that's driving everything you're doing. And I'm of the belief that you do choose the why. Like you do choose it, you clarify it, but you can scrape away levels of understanding it. But the why is just the purpose. The purpose is the goal. Like, what is the ultimate reason you're doing this?

Aristotle would call that final cause, which is basically the end. So as an example, like if I'm hungry, like if I get up and go to the kitchen and start eating, well, why did I get up and go to the kitchen? It might have been because I'm hungry, but it also might have been because I was triggered, and I'm just trying to the kitchen. It might have been because I'm hungry, but it also might have been because I was triggered and I'm just trying to avoid

Trying to avoid working like and so it's just Understanding the why and the purpose starts to help you realize What's driving your behavior? You know when you're younger the why might have been just to impress your friends And so there's always a why behind every action and How psychologists frame it is is every goal is either an approach oriented goal, where you're trying to approach what you want, or you're trying to avoid what you don't want. And so, the why is always going to either be approaching something you want, or avoiding

something you don't want. And so, it's helpful when the why is more approach oriented. Sure, you want to avoid bad things from happening. But if everything you're doing is just to avoid negative things from happening, but if everything you're doing is just to avoid negative things from happening, that kind of probably shows that there's a lot of trauma that's unresolved in the past and so you're trying to avoid a lot of pain.

Yeah, so I'd love if we could just dig on this a little bit. So we're talking about the difference between approach motivations and avoid motivations. When we approach motivation, we're basically creating our future. Rather, avoid motivation is just avoiding a future we don't want, and it's better to proactively create. One is what you're saying.

I just want to understand what you're trying to say. I mean, it's good to avoid things you don't want. Like, it's good to be strategic about avoiding, call it bad decisions, avoiding bad people. But if you're always just avoiding, then basically every action you're taking is a reaction against something else. I'm trying to not, but even avoiding things is based on the future. So I'm trying to avoid being out of shape. I don't want to be obese in the future,

so I'm going to avoid that. That's one way of approaching your future, but it's far more powerful and more proactive to say, well, what is it I truly want to approach? Like, what is it I want to direct my attention towards and focus on and create? And yeah, I can avoid landfalls along the way and I can learn from experiences and avoid those kind of people or I can avoid those kind of dumb mistakes. Like, certainly you can avoid things, but it is very powerful to be proactive and kind of consciously creating like, this is what I want, and then to watch yourself go and get it.

And so, both are useful, both are incredibly useful, both are motivations, and I think it's helpful when you're trying to observe yourself, like, why am I doing this? It's either going to be to approach something you want or to avoid something you don't, and that can start to highlight kind of the why. And one of the why. And

one of the reasons why avoid motivations can have downsides is because if you're always just trying to avoid something, then that means that one of the things you're avoiding is fear. Like you're avoiding going through the emotions of getting what you want. Like if you're always avoiding, then you're also avoiding the hard truths. you're avoiding the fear, you're avoiding hard conversations. And so when you're approaching something, you're willing to face what you would typically want to avoid. I recently end in an end in process of ending a really what's been a great business collaboration.

But for a while, I had avoided the conversation and avoided kind of thinking about what it would take if that happened. If you're always avoiding, then that what that means is that you're not passing through the emotions and the fear that are going to get you where you want to go. When you're operating with commitment and courage, you're not avoiding. You're going right through it and you're transforming through it. I love that. This has been awesome, Ben.

So just to round this out, I thought a good story that kind of ties into a lot that we were talking about. And I know he's a big inspiration for you is Victor Frankl's life. So can you tell us a story about Victor Frankl and how he used his purpose of protecting his book to his rive while he was in the concentration camps in the Holocaust. And what you learned from his story about hope and purpose, and then we'll close out the conversation. So the reason Fronkel is so important, and again, man search for meaning one of the most important books in the world, he was a Jewish person who in 1942 was taken into the Holocaust, right? Like the German Nazi concentration camps.

And what he found with people who are living in such dire situations, we really, I mean, unless you actually study the Holocaust, you don't even understand what I'm saying. It's gibberish right now. It was almost unfathomable how bad it was. Like the people were starved, they were thrown in gas chambers,

people were shot in the head right next to you. Like you're sitting doing grunt work. For months, months, months, years, years, years, everything's been taken from you, even the clothes off your back. You're standing there naked, deprived of everything, deprived of your dreams, deprived of everything. And what Franco noticed when he was in those situations,

because he was a psychologist, and so like he was paying attention to this stuff, he was very in tune with what was going on in people's heads and like, why are some people could be resilient and even be happy in these crazy conditions and why some people would get desperate, lose their minds. And he started to draw an interesting correlation, which was in those dire situations when you're kind of deprived of everything and you're also starved physically. I mean, they were only given like a small piece of bread every day.

Is he saw an immediate correlation that like when someone lost hope toward their future, within days they died in those situations, like their body didn't have enough to sustain them. If you and I lost hope in our future, we'd start to fall apart physically. Like we'd probably lose our health, you know, and hope from a psychology standpoint is like air to your physical body, like food and air, like you need hope because you're who you are right now is largely dictated by your views of the future. So basically what Fronkle found was is that unless you had a specific goal, which is a huge aspect of hope, without a specific goal that gave your life meaning and substance, you couldn't handle the present, especially when it was that bad.

And so that's why he always quoted Nietzsche, which is when you have a why to live for, you can bear almost any how. And so everything he did, and he literally, he layers it, and I share the best quotes of it in future self. But he says, you know, when you lose, when you lose hope in your future, you know, you're doomed. But he also said that everything we did in the concentration camps to give people hope or to even help them to be able to manage their mind or manage their emotions

was we had to give to them a goal in their future, which they could work towards. And he himself, he literally stated the goal that gave him purpose and gave him meaning and allowed him to endure the trials. And for him, it was he wanted to be reconnected with his wife, Tilly, who was taken to another camp. He didn't know that she'd already been killed, who and she was pregnant with their baby. But he didn't know that. He wanted to be reconnected with her.

But also, he wanted to rewrite his book, which was almost done being written when they got basically taken by the Nazis and they took the manuscript and tore it apart. He literally states this in Mansourch for meaning he said, my deep desire to rewrite that book and new and publish it allowed me to overcome the rigors and the pain of the camps. So when you have a wide a live for, you can bear almost any how. If you don't have a wide a live for, if you don't have hope and commitment in your future, then you're not going to be very productive. I mean, little things in your day can throw you away off. But for him, in those situations, it was life or death. It's literally life or death. Yeah. So so fascinating. I think this is a great way to

close out the interview. So I always end the interview with a couple last questions. And then we do something fun at the end of the year and recap them. So the first one is what is one actionable thing our young and profitors can do today to become more profitable tomorrow? It goes back to the Alex Hermose comment for me right now, which is, I love the quote, it's better to be a meaningful specific than a wandering generality. And so the more clear you get on your future self and the more specific, that obviously takes you down a specific direction. You're not trying to be everything for everyone.

Like, some of the recent decisions I've made in my career and in the books I'm writing have to do with, like, becoming even more focused, even more specific in a narrow range. It's kind of like the 80-20 principle. Like, 80% of what you're doing is kind of a distraction, whereas it's just the core 20 that makes sense. And so you want to go deeper and deeper into that.

Like, let go of everything else. Like, actually commit and go deep and get 10 times better in something specific. Like, if you get really, really good in something specific, it kind of reminds me of that quote, becomes so good you can't be ignored. But it's really about qualitative, not quantitative. It's not about the quantity of what you do.

It's about the quality of how you do it. And that requires focus, commitment, and purpose. And so just commit to something and commit to getting really, really good and unique in that thing. That's actually what mastery is. It's not about doing something well. It's about doing something uniquely well, incomparably well.

And that takes commitment and depth, not broadness. Love that, Mike, drop. All right. And what is your secret to profiting in life? Defining what profit means to me, not everything is profitable, not everything is worth my time, not everything is useful. And so defining what I value, what I care about, what matters most, and then going all in on those few things and letting go of everything else. And Ben, where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do? Benjaminhardy.com and futureself.com. Awesome.

And we're going to stick all of your links in the show notes. Ben, thank you again for coming back on to Young Improfting Podcast. I'm happy to be with you. Your future self, who you are today is unimaginable to who you were four years ago. It's so cool. Thank you so much Yeah, fam. I have to say for some reason this interview just hit different I've really been thinking about this conversation a lot. I Love Benjamin Hardy's work. What a blessing! And really full circle moment for him to have come on the show four years later. And last time he was on

Yapp, it was for episode seven. I was literally just starting out at that point. And if I look back at all the progress I've made up until now, it's beyond anything I could have ever imagined, cover of podcast magazine, webbeaward honoree, I mean little halitah for and a half years ago would have never, ever in her wildest dreams imagined that Tony Robbins would be asking us to come on the show. But even with all this progress, I don't always feel great. I fall into this trap of comparing myself to others. Other podcasters who started 12 years ago and not 5 years ago who were early adopters and captured more market share, that I'll never be able to really catch up to or it feels

like that sometimes. Sometimes I fall into living into what Ben calls the gap, but I shouldn't measure myself this way. I should measure the progress. The gain, I should measure my current self against my past self and not my future self. And although it's healthy to measure progress and look backwards, it's actually not healthy to stay in that place. You don't want to always be in the past. It's better to think about who you want to be in the future. Like Ben said in the interview, the best thing you can do is get really clear

and connected to your future. So understand who you want to be and then make decisions from that lens. It's your North Star for directing what you do day in and day out. The thing that I keep harping on in my mind is that we are not our past self and we are not our future self.

And this to me is just so freeing. The reason is is that I think we all carry trauma, whether it's like an embarrassing moment or we regret some mistake that we did and we got fired or there was a bad breakup or somebody did something wrong to us and wronged us. And we all have these memories that involve ourselves and other people in the past. And these things that are like open loops in our mind that a lot of us are resentful of other people and feel revenge and envy and all these things. And when you think about it, they are not those same people.

They don't even have the same cells anymore. They don't have the same thoughts anymore. They've had other experiences now that have shaped them. They have gone through their own trauma. They no longer think the same and they're not the same. And so for me, this was just such a powerful thing that I never really thought about that we are not our past or our future selves. And that's really freeing because you end up forgiving people and you end up maybe being

able to mend friendships and move forward when you realize that people can change. You can change. And you are not your old self or past self and your friends and people in your life are not their old self or past self. And we can all move on from things that may have happened in the past. And if you guys enjoyed this episode, tell all of your friends about it. Let everybody know about Young and Profiting podcasts and how it's your favorite way to listen, learn and profit. And if you guys like to watch your podcasts, keep in mind we have a growing YouTube channel.

You can find all of our latest video interviews on there. And you guys can also find me on Instagram. Let's drop it up in the DMs. You can find me at Yapp with Hala. I'd love to hear your feedback about the show. You guys can also find me on LinkedIn. You can't miss me on that platform. And thanks to my amazing production team here at YAP Media, I appreciate all of your hard work. This is your host, Palataha, signing off. Are you looking for ways to be happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative? I'm Gretchen Ruben, the number one best-selling author of the Happiness Project. And every week, we share ideas and practical solutions on the Happier with Gretchen Ruben podcast.

My co-host and happiness guinea pig is my sister Elizabeth Kraft. That's me sister Elizabeth Kraft. That's me Elizabeth Kraft, a TV writer and producer in Hollywood. Join us as we explore fresh insights from cutting edge science, ancient wisdom, pop culture, and our own experiences about cultivating happiness and good habits. Every week we offer a try this at home tip you can use to boost your happiness without spending a lot of time energy or money. Suggestions such as follow the one-minute rule. Choose a one-word theme for the year or design your summer. We also feature segments like know yourself better where we discuss questions like are you an over buyer or an under buyer? Morning person or night person, abundance lever or simplicity

lever? And every episode includes a happiness hack, a quick, easy shortcut to more happiness. Listen and follow the podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin. When you look around your home, what makes you smile? Personal touches, beautiful light, lines, colors, things of quality that enhance your life. California Clauseids specializes in making space for what belongs, with richly textured finishes and quality materials that last.

From the bedroom to the pantry to the mudroom, everything we do is custom-designed, built, and installed by people who take pride in serving you. Think of it as practical magic. Book your free design consultation today at CaliforniaClosets.com