 Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dylan. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you love this podcast, please do me a favor. However you listen to us, give us a rating review so that more people can find this organically because the more reviews that we get, the more that these platforms show this to people who have never actually listened to this podcast. So the way that we grow, the way this message spreads is from you guys giving us rating reviews. So I would greatly, greatly appreciate if you would do that. Today, we're gonna be talking about living in the energy of your future. And one of the things that I see that holds people back a ton is that they live in their past. And I'm gonna talk about why that is and why we take our past and we throw it into our future thinking that our future is going to equal what's happened to us in our past. It makes complete sense. But let me tell you why. That whole process that is just, it's just an unconscious process is actually holding you back from taking the actions that you need to and creating the life that you need to. I'm gonna talk about how it works in your brain and how to actually get past that. And the way that I like to think about the past is this. One of my favorite philosophers is Alan Watts. And Alan Watts says, the way he describes this is saying, I want you to imagine you're on a boat and you look at a boat and you look behind the boat. And behind every single boat that's moving, there's a wake. There's the waves that are coming off the back of the boat, right? And that wave coming off the back of the boat shows you where you just came from. It shows you where you have been, but the wake of the boat in no sort of way can steer the boat. But so many humans basically use the wake, our past, and use the past to actually steer the present moment going into our futures. And so with that being said, why do we care about the past in the first place? Why does the past mean anything to us when we're trying to create the life that we want? When we're in the present moment, why do we think about the past? And when we're thinking about our future and we're trying to work towards it, why do we actually have the past hold us back? But let me tell you, by looking at the brain exactly why this is. The human brain at the simplest form is designed more than anything else to keep you alive. Does it do other things? Yeah, of course it does other things, but the real thing that it wants to do, the highest priority is to keep you alive. It's a beautiful thing. How does it try to keep you alive? One way that it does it is by trying to predict your future, to predict the future, because if you predict the future, you have a better chance of staying alive. And so what it can do is if it can predict the future and try to make the future, which is unknown, feel like it is known, you can plan, you can make the right moves, and then hopefully you can avoid injury, you can avoid death, you can avoid anything that's going to potentially kill you or injure you. And so I'll give you an example. Let's say that one morning, early morning, this is 100,000 years ago, you and your friend are walking by a lake, and then boom, alligator comes out, snatches your friend, takes him under, kills him, you never see that friend again. Don't suck, right? But what your brain will do is now that it's got those, that past that it can think about, anytime that you have something that resembles that moment, your brain will start to predict the future to keep you alive. So if you're walking by a lake, you're gonna be a little bit nervous. You're probably going to avoid that specific lake ever again. You're not gonna go by there and try to drink some water out of it. Every time that you go by water, you're going to be careful. You're gonna subconsciously get a little bit nervous. You're gonna hold yourself back. If it, so water is going could be a trigger for you. If it happens in the morning, like I was just talking about, you can actually, what your brain will do is not just think about the event, but it will think about everything that happened before the event that led up to it. And so you might notice waking up in the morning and being a little bit nervous, being a little bit anxious. Why? Because your brain is trying to take past events and things that it's seen before and throw it into the future and go, well, if you do this, this could happen. If you do this, this could happen. If you do this, this could happen. Right? And this is important. If you do this, this could happen. And it'll make sense as we go through today's episode. Now, another thing is let's say that you, your exact same situation, but instead of your friend walking by a lake and getting attacked by an alligator, maybe your friend's hungry, you're going a little walk, maybe you're foraging, and you're not very hungry, but your friend is, and they go and they pick some berries. And then an hour later, they end up passing out. Well, now you're gonna be a little bit more careful when you see red berries like that one was. You might avoid all red berries for the rest of your life. You might be really cautious anytime somebody brings berries to you. And so what you do, and your brain is so incredible, is it takes all of your past events into the present moment and throws it into your future to try to predict what your future could be. And this is incredible. It's one of the biggest things that kept our species alive. It is amazing to be able to have this. What the brain does is it predicts the past, or it takes the past and tries to predict the future by throwing past events into your future to try to avoid, try to predict potential pain, potential death, and it is amazing for staying alive. But it is terrible if you're trying to create a successful life. It is terrible if you're trying to grow a business. It is terrible if you're trying to get out of your comfort zone. It is terrible if you're trying to build an amazing relationship when you've had bad relationships in the past. Your brain wants to predict the future, so what does it do? It predicts the future. What can we do to get past that? We can give it a new thing to predict. We can be in charge of what the brain predicts. And this is where it really comes in with work and intention. You can let your brain unconsciously, all of the time, predict the future from past events because it's got proof. It's taking the proof of the past, trying to figure out what your future could look like. You can let it do that unconsciously, or you can be in charge of the prediction that your brain takes through visualization. Now, most people, I hear people all the time, self-sabotage, self-sabotage, self-sabotage. Why do you self-sabotage? Because your brain is taking things that have happened to you or things that have happened to people that you know or things that you've seen on the news and trying to predict what your future could possibly look like. You can do that unconsciously or you can decide what you want your future to look like and get focused on that so that the brain doesn't go into the past but your brain goes into the future that you actually want it to look like. And this can sound like a little bit woo-wee-wee, but more than anything else, what you're doing is you're actually brainwashing and tricking your brain into thinking something that has not happened yet is fully 100% possible because your brain doesn't know the difference between something that is happening right now in reality and something that you're visualizing. Let me say that again. Your brain, scientifically science have proven this, scientists have proven this, that your brain doesn't know the difference between something that is happening right now in real life or if you're sitting in your chair and you're visualizing it and you're bringing a heightened state of emotion and actually feeling it. It's all the same to the brain. It's all stored away as a record of the past which means a visualization is stored away as a record of the past the same way that your friend being attacked by the alligator is stored away as a record of the past. It means that this means that it thinks and it stores everything as if it were true. So what do we do? We start to use our visualization because otherwise, if we don't use our visualization it will take your past and put it in the future all the time. Take your past and put it in the future. So if you've had a failed business before in the past and you wanna start a new business guess what it's going to do? It's going to self-sabotage you to try to protect you because that failed business that you had seven years ago you went through so much pain you lost so much money you ended up losing so much weight you didn't take care of yourself you lost sleep you were anxious all the time your brain doesn't want you to go through that pain again and so what does it do? It goes hey, subconsciously you're not thinking about this consciously hey, remember that time in the past that you had a business? Remember how much that sucked? Remember how much turmoil that caused you? Remember how your relationships were struggling from it? Remember how you lost all that money you put all of that hard work in and you didn't get anything from it? So you have that failed business in the past that is actually changing your current right now present which is going to change your future even if you haven't had a failed business in the past but you want to start a business and you know somebody who has had a failed business guess what it's going to do? It's going to make predictions off of other people's businesses that you know from the past why? Because it wants to predict future pain it's just trying to make you avoid future pain that's all it's trying to do this can happen in relationships this can happen in everywhere but I'll just give you a couple of examples right? If relationships if you had somebody in your past five years ago you had a great relationship you were so in love with this person and then they cheated on you guess what your brain is going to do next time you're in a relationship it is going to take this new person who did not cheat on you who is not the same person you're also not the same person as you were five years ago and it's going to make predictions about your new partner based off of your old partner cheating on you and so what's going to happen this is why you can see someone who gets cheated on or they have a terrible relationship and they ruin relationship after relationship after relationship and they self sabotage these new relationships why? Because they want to make sure that there's no future pain coming up there's a story that I know of a friend of a friend and she was cheated on years ago and she got into a relationship with this new guy who was great, she loved him everything was amazing but the problem was she was so nervous about him cheating on her because she was hurt so bad in the past that she was like all over him every time he would go out she'd text him what are you, what are you doing he'd go out with his friends she'd say you didn't text me over the last hour what's going on are you with any girls or any and she started literally he wanted, he was just going out and having fun with his friends but she started like literally every single hour had to know where he is send me some pictures let me know what you're doing da da da da da and eventually he was like I can't take this anymore and then breaking up with her so she created what she was thinking about in the past which was a ruined relationship with someone that she loved and this happens with people always over and over and over it can happen in business it can happen in money it can happen in relationships it can happen in friendships and it's completely unintentional and it's subconscious but it is a subconscious self-sabotaging cycle that we need to actually learn how to end we need to go you know what I'm not going to be that person anymore I'm not going to let the past dictate my present or dictate my future and so what do I need to do we need to create our own future in our mind before we actually go and create it in the real world we need to be in charge and be intentional about what our brain is actually predicting into the future and so there's a couple of steps first we have to get really really clear on what we want the more clear that you are on what it is that you want the more likely you are to get it but also the more the easier that it makes it for you to sit down and start to visualize it and I understand the visualization process can be hard for a lot of people because you've never done it before but it's just like anything else practice makes perfect practice more than anything else practice makes progress that's really what you're looking for so first thing is you have to get really clear get every single detail about this future that you want get every single detail about this business that you want even though you've had failed businesses in the past we have to be diligent about not letting our past creep into our present moment and predict our future so we got to get really clear second thing is we have to make time every single day preferably in the morning to predict it what does it look like if you sit down for 10 minutes and you think about what does the perfect life look like 10 years from today 12 months from today what does all that look like and then you ask yourself what would the perfect day look like and you start to actually visualize what your day is going to look like so that you can create it so what does it look like that's the visualization process but a very important part of a visualization process that people don't really know is to bring their body into it not only what does it look like but what does it feel like to achieve the life that I want to what would I feel like to accomplish this goal that I have written on a piece of paper and allow our body to actually pull the feelings of that accomplishment as if the accomplishment has already happened even though it hasn't happened yet you have to learn to live in your future every single day and this is why it's intentional because you have to wake up you have to get very detailed on what it is and you have to see it you have to take 10 minutes every single morning and do this I recommend doing it before you get your coffee because your coffee ends up making you a little bit more jittery and your brain is closer to theta state which is not going into too many details it's the most programmable state that we have and you're in theta state as soon as you wake up in the morning and so what you do is you sit there and you visualize let's just say the business we'll take that as an example you visualize okay I want to make a million dollars in my business in the next 24 months and you visualize 24 months from today looking at that bank statement seeing that a million dollars in revenue has come in and what it would feel like and look like in your body and in your mind when you're in that moment when you have accomplished that thing and you let the feeling of excitement of your future drive your action not the past and all the shitty stuff that's happened to us in the past we allow the future to drive our action and it makes it so much easier to take action when we're driving ourselves towards a future it looks amazing because people like familiarity which is why we go back to the past but can you make yourself even more familiar with your future than you are with your past can you be more familiar with your future that you want than you are with your past because check this out this is what's crazy the past event that you're thinking about it only happened one time it only happened one time but you've been replaying it over and over and over and over again if you wake up every single morning and you visualize your future instead of happening just once your future can happen every single morning every single morning and instead of being instead of the feeling of fear about the future being based off the past throwing that past into your future can you feel watch this can you feel grateful in the present moment for a future that has not happened yet can you learn to be grateful for the future that is coming can you fill up your mind in your body with the feelings of gratitude can you do that absolutely because what I always tell you guys and you've heard me say this in past past episodes before is that the beautiful thing about humans is that we can imagine the future but we usually imagine a future that we don't want as a protection mechanism and when you're imagining a future and it's very vivid you're feeling the feelings of that future as if it's happening right now and so you can imagine the feeling of that business failing you can imagine it and it's not even real it's just an imagined future and you can feel what it would feel like if that happened I'll give you a really good example I'm afraid of heights if you're afraid of heights have you ever watched a video of somebody climbing really high I'm literally my hands are starting to sweat already just thinking about it but check this out have you ever watched a video and gotten nervous by watching somebody else have you ever had your hands start to literally sweat by putting yourself into that person's predicament you have the thought of me watching somebody right now really high up actually makes my hands start to sweat if that's possible if literally the thought can make my hands sweat what's happening when you're imagining your future and that business failing or you imagine that person that you love cheating on you what's happening you're creating the feelings of the future in this present moment and so instead of being guided by those feelings because of your thoughts and your predictions why not allow ourselves to fill ourselves up with gratitude with excitement with appreciation for the future that is coming every single day can we do that? absolutely we can but it takes time it takes intention it takes you making sure you wake up and do it every single morning and the beautiful thing about it I want to say is this that's important release control of when it will happen when it will happen too many people are like oh I've been doing this for two weeks and my future isn't here yet right well we're trying to unprogram a lot of old things if you're 25 years old 35 years old we're trying to unprogram 35 years of programming so release control of when it's happening and then just know with every fiber of your being every single cell all 40 trillion cells in your body that it will happen you have to mentally rehearse your future in your mind over and over and over again and it can be hard at first you can feel like you're doing it wrong if you feel like you're doing it wrong you're most of the time doing it right why? because your body and mind are unfamiliar with those feelings and the body doesn't like unfamiliar the body and mind is unfamiliar of being excited and feeling grateful for your future because you've probably been fearing your future fearing the unknown it can be uncomfortable it can be hard the first couple of times you do it but if you do it over and over and over again what you'll start to notice if you do it today might be a little bit hard to do it but if you do it every single day for six months six months from today your brain will just click into that thought your body will just click into that feeling and you'll be able to feel those feelings of excitement, of gratitude of creating the future that you wanted so much faster than you can today so you have to mentally rehearse your future over and over day in, day out do it at the beginning of the day and if you can, put it at the end of the day right before you go to bed and at the end of the day ask yourself how did today go? how did I go? you know, okay, with this how did it go? well, with this, I didn't react the way that I wanted to okay, well, next time I'm going to do this what you do is you become self-aware of your action become self-aware of your thoughts you become self-aware of your feelings and you start to self-correct ourselves in every single place we possibly can so you can either allow your brain to make predictions by itself but if it does, it probably won't be the predictions you want to or you can wake up every single day and be driven by the thoughts and the feelings and the gratitude and the excitement of creating the future that you want to and let that propel you into working and taking the actions you need to for the life that you want to create so that's what I got for you for today's episode if you love this episode please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R also, we've been putting up a ton of new posts some posts from this podcast but also some posts from speeches that I've given that have never been seen before on the podcast Instagram which is the Mindset Mentor podcast so if you want some extra stuff inside of your feed on Instagram go to the Mindset Mentor podcast as well and follow us on there to see a lot of unseen stuff and I'm gonna leave the same way I leave you every single episode make it your mission to make somebody else's day better I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day