Latest / The You Project / #1654 Future-Proofing You - Harps

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#1654 Future-Proofing You - Harps · The You Project

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Good a team.
• 0:00
  Speaker 2: I hope you're bloody terrific.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: So there's an idea that's spoken about in business a lot,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: and that is future proofing. And the question is how
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: do we future proof our business? And of course you
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: can't guarantee what will happen within the context of an
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: entire professional industry or even within a single business. We
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: can't guarantee what will happen moving forward. But the idea
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: of future proofing your business this is my best understanding anyway.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Clearly not an area of expertise for me, but my
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: understanding is that we do what we can now.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: We do what we need to do.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: We make decisions, We create contingencies and plans and put
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: in place strategies and protocols and operating systems that will
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: hopefully help our business not only thrive in the now,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: but also moving forward, thrive, survive, thrive and proliferate whatever
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: that means in the context of your particular business into
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: the future. So we don't wait until something falls off,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: for breaks, or we don't wait for the catastrophe. We
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: as much as we can, we predict and we think forward,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: and we anticipate, and we look at trends and we
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: look at what happens in other similar businesses over time,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: and we try our very best to anticipate and plan
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: for what's coming. Of course, we can't always do that
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: with one hundred percent success, but that's the idea. The
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: idea is we think about where we're at right now
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: in our business and what we might need to do
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: be create change and adapt to moving forward to grow
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: in the way that we want to grow over the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: next one, two, five, ten, twenty years. So I thought,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I like the idea of that, like that term. And
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: we've spoken about this, you know, I spoke the other
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: day at length about increasing our health span, and so
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: this is a little bit of a follow on from that.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: And when we think about in the moment, we think
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: about today, what do I need to do today or
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: tomorrow or this week? What can I do? What might
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: I do? What decisions can I make? What action can
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: I take? What thing can I own up to? What
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: protocol or operating system can I implement that might help
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: me live not only a long life, but a long
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: healthy life. So, of course lifespan, we know what it is.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: And also you know, if you listen to that episode,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: that health span is the percentage of your total years
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: lived or your lifespan, it's the percentage of that that
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: you are in a relatively healthy functional, operational, physical, mental,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: emotional healthy state. So if you live to ninety, an,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: eighty eight, or eighty nine of those years are relatively healthy,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: then you would call that an incredibly long health span.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Versus somebody who lives for ninety years. In the last
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: twenty five years, they're basically being propped up and in
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: some ways kept alive by pharmaceuticals and medical interventions, and
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: which is of course not bad. But what we find
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: is that even though they might live to ninety years,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: the last twenty five years of their life is in pain,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: is in discomfort, is in a level of dysfunction, and
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: so the quality of their life as an experience for
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: the person inside that body is not great. So I'm
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: always saying that you will not accidentally end up rich,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: You will not accidentally end up happy. You will not
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: accidentally end up in an amazing body, in an amazing environment,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: with an amazing business or an amazing career. You will
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: not fall on your feet. You will not just somehow
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: with no planning, with no work, with no risk, with
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: no facing fears. With no decision making, with no resilience,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: with no capacity to do the things necessary, you will
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: not just somehow end up in an amazing health state,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: or an amazing financial state, or an amazing marriage. Things
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: require work, effort, focused, decision making, commitment. And so when
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: we think about future proofing our life, and again it's
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: not guaranteed, but what we're trying to do is we're
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: trying to maximize.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: The chance that.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: So if I was to future proof my life, now,
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  Speaker 1: let's use me as an example. And it's probably not
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: a terrible example because I'm sixty and most people, it said,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: and most people we're talking about, the majority, are not
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: in good shape. If you go and find one hundred
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: and seventy year olds in Australia and you look at
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: how they work in inverted commas, you'll find that a
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: reasonably significant percentage of those seventy year olds are dealing
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: with a lot of issues physical, mental, emotional, sometimes financial,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: practical issues, and many of those could have been ameliorated
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: or could have been avoided. Many of those have they
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: done certain things earlier in their life. Some things, of course,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: are genetically inevitable, but even within the context of genetic disposition.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: We still know that we can influence genetic expression with
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: the way that we live, with the things that we
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: do to our body, with our lifestyle, with our sleep,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: with our food, with our choices, with our mindset, with
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: the way that we socialize. We know that we can
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: even impact our genetic expression consciously. And so the way
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: that we turn out for one of the better word
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  Speaker 1: turnout in inverted commas at seventy or eighty or fifty
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: is in part due to genetic disposition, but in a
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: much larger part it is a result of, or byproduct
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: of what we do with what we've been given. So
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: the questions that you might think about, and this won't
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: be a long discussion, but you know, the quality of
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: your life moving forward. I think about future proofing your life,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: or trying to guarantee as much as is possible, or
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: to ensure as much as possible what your life will
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: be like to inhabit for youabitant of that life, but
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: also you the designer of that life. You get to
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: in many ways you get to design what your life
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: experience will be. But there needs to be much more
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: than the design phase. There needs to be the execution
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: and the or the planning and the execution and the
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: creation phase. So when I say, right when I'm seventy,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: in in fact, in just over nine years, when I'm seventy,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: I want to be I want to be in a strong,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: functional body as much as I can with the knowledge
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  Speaker 1: I have, the skills, I have, the resources I have,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: and the genetic potential that I've been given. Right, So,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: right now, at this age sixty nearly sixty one, I
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: go right, So what do I need to do then
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: to make that nine and a bit year intention a
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: nine and a bit year reality. How do I optimize
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: the chances of me being a seventy year old that
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: is atypical. That is not for ego and not for accolades,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: but atypical in the sense of I'm much stronger, I'm
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: much more operational, my immune system is stronger, I'm more flexible,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: I've got more fitness, I'm my brain works better than average.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: I'm still learning, I'm still unlearning. I still have purpose,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: i still have focus. I'm still of service and value
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: to others. I'm still loving my life, I'm still growing,
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  Speaker 1: I'm still How do I maximize my chances of everything
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: that I just said being real for me at seventy, Well,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: there's a bunch of stuff, but I'm going to give
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: you a few. I don't know how old you are,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: buck fast forward ten years. Think about you in ten years,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: think about you in five years, if you want, think
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: about you in thirty years. Like whatever's relevant for you,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: wherever you're at. And the funny thing is when we're young,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: and I know I have a lot of kind of
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: for want of a better term, a middle aged and
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: by that I mean people somewhere in the ballpark of
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: forty forty forty five. We have quite a lot of
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: people in the thirties, but also people in the fifties
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  Speaker 1: who listen to this, is that when you're in your
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: twenties and thirties, you know you while you conceptually understand
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: getting old, the experience of time, the experience of time
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: between about forty and sixty is for me anyway, it's
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: been a complete distortion. It's like by that I mean
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: twenty years experientially feels like five for me and for
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: many people that I talk to. And we also know
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: that we humans have.
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  Speaker 2: A propensity to.
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  Speaker 1: Put our head down and just do life, groundhog day life,
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  Speaker 1: even when it's not working, even we're doing shit that's
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: giving us bad results, even when we're putting crap in
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: our body, even when we're spending money on things we
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: don't need, while simultaneously being in a bad situation financially
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: continuing to have unproductive, toxic, destructive conversations with people about
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: the same thing. We just do this. We get in
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: this ridiculous kind of pattern of repetition and ritual and
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: frustration that doesn't work, and then we stick our head
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: up and oh fuck, now we're fifty. And this is
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: not about This is not about oh, you're broken, or
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: you're weird, or you're bad, or I'm weird, or but
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: this is about Okay, you're human. You've done some dumb shit.
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  Speaker 1: Now let's do better. Put up your hand if you've
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: done dumb shit. All the hands are up. Why because
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: we've all done dumb shit. Who wants to do better
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: shit moving forward? Don't overthink it. All the hands go up.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Of course, we all want to do better moving forward.
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  Speaker 1: But here's the thing. You are not going to stick
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  Speaker 1: your head up in a decade and go, fuck, how
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  Speaker 1: did I get here? This is amazing? Oh my god,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: things just worked out. Oh my god, I fell on
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: my feet. Oh my god, the opportunity fairy knocked on
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  Speaker 1: my fucking door and here I am. Life is nirvana.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: It's not happening. It doesn't happen. It happens maybe in
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: the movies, maybe on the Disney Channel, maybe I don't know,
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  Speaker 1: but for the most part, it doesn't happen to us
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  Speaker 1: regular humans. We are going to create an amazing existence
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  Speaker 1: or we're going to be swept along in the momentum
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  Speaker 1: that is our current existence and reality, which for some
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  Speaker 1: of you is not the existence or reality that you
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: want to inhabit. So if where you're at right now
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: and you think moving forward is somewhere between great and
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: fucking amazing, this may not be for you. But if
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: you realize that your current operating system is not optimal,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: and you realize that perhaps based on your current trajectory,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: your existence in ten years might be somewhere between not
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: very good and fucking catastrophic, then now is the time,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Like this is the time now. I know it's not convenient.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: I know you didn't think about it, and maybe not
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: now today, but definitely now as in nowsh nowish today, tomorrow,
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  Speaker 1: the next day where we start to think about, we
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: start to design and construct and plan for the future
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  Speaker 1: existence that we will all inhabit. So in ten years,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: two things are going to happen. Three things are going
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: to happen. There's three potential outcomes. In ten years, you're
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: going to be one dead. Let's hope that's not the reality.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: You're going to be two alive and in a better
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: place because your future proofed your life, or alive and
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: in a worse place, or maybe I guess there's option
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: for about the same place. But we all know what
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: it is that you want. At the very least, we
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: want to kind of hold on to what we've got,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: But I think most of us, on some level, we
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: want to create a better version of what we currently
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: and habit. The quality of your life moving forward and
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: my life moving forward, will be about your willingness to
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: just do the to identify what do I need to
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: do and do the work. And I know this is
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: not a revelation. I know this is not a new construct.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: I know this is not new information. But the truth
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: is that despite the obvious truth of this, the obvious
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: reality of this, most people just don't do it because
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: we are so in the moment and while we'll only
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: ever live live being a present tense verb in the
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: moment our life moving forward in ten years, it's just
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: going to be a series of now moments between them
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: out now and then, and so for you to be
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: able to define what matters to you moving forward, your goals,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: your values, and your needs. What matters to you moving
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: forward is or what's kind of matter to you moving forward,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: It's important to get clarity around that. It's important for
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: you to create a plan now, a strategy now, an
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: accountability system now, a timeline now, and then for you
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: to be able to systematically, methodically, intelligently, courageously execute that
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: fucking plan so that this is not just another thing
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: that you almost did. How many people have got a
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: mine field, a waste land of things that they almost
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: did in their rear view mirror, fucking everyone. If nothing changes,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: nothing changes. The quality of your life moving forward will
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: be dependent on a bunch of things. Your ability to
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: deal with uncertainty and unpredictability, your ability to and willingness
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: to solve problems in real time, to ask great questions,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: to be resilient and perform under pressure, and importantly, your
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: ability to outwork and outlast sounds like an episode of
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Survivor to outwork and outlast your motivation, Like, what do
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: you want to look and feel like when you're seventy?
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: What do you want to perhaps more importantly, feel and
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: function like at seventy? How do you want your brain
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: to work at seventy? And more broadly, what does successful
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: at seventy or sixty or fifty? Just plug in the
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: number that's relevant for you. What does successful at seventy
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: mean for you? What does that look like? What's happening
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: when you think about that future version of you? And
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: things are going great? When you imagine yourself there, When
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: you visualize yourself in this five or ten year future reality,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: what's happening there? What's happening there? And what do you
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: need to do now to make sure that that actually
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: becomes real not just some theoretical construct. As you listen
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: to these words, it's not just an imagination thing. It
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: becomes an actualization thing. It becomes something that's transferred from
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: a construct in your non physical world that is your mind,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: into a real experiential outcome in your physical, three dimensional life,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: the one that you exist in and inhabit. What a
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: successful seventy year old you look like function like, and
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: future proofing you is not about It's not about knowing
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: or predicting every possible challenge, event or outcome, but really
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: about it is about planning for the future and creating outcomes.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: But it's also about you being able to be flexible enough,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: and resilient enough, and adaptable enough and open minded enough
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: to be able to thrive whatever happens. Because the ship
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: show is coming. It comes for all of us. The
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: ship show is coming. And the challenge is not to
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: avoid the shit show, not forever anyway, but it's about
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: being able to navigate it. So I'm going to wind
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: up with this. We'll keep this quite short a few minutes.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: So when you think about future proofing you, what does
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: that mean in terms of your relationships? What does that
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: mean in terms of your financial security? What are some
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: actions that you can take or decisions you can make,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: or changes that need to be implemented to improve at
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: least the chances of you being financially in a good
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: place when you are pick the age. What does future
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: proofing look like when you talk about mental and emotional health.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: You know how you work, What are some things that
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: you can put in place? To increase the likelihood of
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: future you being in a better mentally and emotionally place
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: than perhaps historical you has been. And what about cognitive function?
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: How are you going to keep your brain working well
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: into the future. Let's put aside the mental psychological stuff.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about just the brain performance. So your cognitive
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: capacity to work optimally, to solve problems, to remember things,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: to focus, to be productive, and to be able to
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: have great communication and to be able to do all the.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: Things that a brain does at a high level.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: What's your plan moving forward for that? And what about
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: social health? What about interaction, connection, love, being loved, community,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Like we know that for people as they get into
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: their older years, that while of course socialization is very
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: important across the lifespan, for many people the social component
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: to their existence is almost the biggest determinant of how
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: well they live and how long they live. Like our
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: ability as we get older, or our capacity to be
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: able to be connected and to communicate and to socialize
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: and interact and to belong is crucially important. What's your
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: future proofing plan for that? And then we think about
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: your physical capabilities. And I'm not talking about what you
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: look like, but just being able to walk, just being functional,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: just being operational, being able to pick up a grand
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: kid or two, just being able to move across the
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: landscape with some level of confidence and competence, and just
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: being atypically strong for your age, and even thinking about
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: what retirement might look like. I spoke about this recently
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: in the health Span episode. But again, like the idea
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: of retirement is a fucking stupid idea. If that idea
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: looks like essentially doing not much and relaxing on the
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: couch and watching the Telly, if retirement still involves purpose
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: and meaning and interaction and connection and some solving problems
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: and some fun and some travel and some you know,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: some ongoing learning paths. So we're still using our body,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: We're still using our mind, We're still using our brain.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: We're not retiring us. We're where we're retiring from a
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: job or a career, but we're still operationalizing and optimizing
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: what we have to work with as well as we can. Ah.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: I think that went all right, considering I pretty much
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: made it up on the spot. But I just like
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: the idea. I just like the idea of thinking about
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: future proofing you. I like it