How to Better-Leverage Your Future - Episode: 023
Are you PUMPED about what your future holds?
We all have the ability to answer that with a heartfelt "yes." This episode unearths the untapped potential within your mind. We dig into how the prefrontal cortex, if left undirected, defaults to stress and worry, and learn how to guide it towards a clear vision of success.
Get ready to redefine your future, whether it's excelling as a dad, a leader at work, or a husband.
Speaker 1
This is the Durable Dad podcast. I'm your host, tommy Geary. This show is going to give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work, your community and, most importantly, your family. All right, what's up guys? Episode number 23. Real quick, I'm going to just tell you something that I've never done before, and I did last night, and I think it's applicable to what we're talking about today.
Speaker 1
I threw out the first pitch at the Toledo Mud Hens game. I won this certificate in a charity raffle and tried to give it to my nephew who didn't want to throw out the first pitch, and I was like, okay, I'm going to do it, I'm not going to let this thing go to waste. It was a blast. My dad came in from Chicago to watch and hang out and we got to play catch before the first pitch and that was kind of sentimental and hit my heart a little bit and Brenda's family came too. It was funny in a way, but after doing it it was like it was a blast. It was cool to be out there on the field and throw. I nailed it. I threw a good strike and before I was nervous leading up to it, my brain was definitely focused on short hopping it or overthrowing it and hitting the backstop. So my brain you know that's what our brain does and that's what we're going to talk about today is that it worries about what might happen in the future. And so yesterday, leading up to the game, I kind of switched it. I deliberately started thinking about what success looked like, what it looked like when I threw the ball and it hit the mid and the mid popped and I had a smile on my face and, like, gave my dad and Brenda high five when I was done and generated that emotion. And that's what we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 1
Last week we talked about how the stories about our past are optional, and the same goes for our stories about our future. They're optional. If we aren't pumped up about our future, if we aren't confident and excited about what we're going to create in our future, then this is a big area of opportunity for us. And that's kind of what I noticed when I was getting ready to throw out the first pitch, so turning the focus to what I wanted to create instead of what my brain defaults to.
Speaker 1
And so what's going on here in our brain? We have these amazing muscles, machines, these brains in our head, and we don't maximize them. There's this part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex, and it's in the front part of our brain. It's up top, right behind our forehead, and we can use it to visualize whatever we want. This is the part of our brain that makes us human being able to imagine the future, think creatively, plan ahead. It's what separates us from all other mammals on the planet, and if we're not consciously giving our prefrontal cortex direction towards what we want, it's gonna default to worry and stress, because our brains are designed to keep us safe, and that means looking out for danger. So if we're not deliberately thinking about future success, we start focusing on the scary stuff in the world the unstable economy, the pitfalls of AI, how we're not making enough money and we need to be making more money, and so we wanna get really deliberate on guiding our prefrontal cortex to focus on the things that we want.
Speaker 1
What success looks like in any area of life? It could be success as a dad, a leader at work, as a husband. What does success look like? Cause, if we don't have a clear vision and think about the positive things, our brain is gonna ruminate about making enough money keeping everyone in the family happy. And these thoughts create feelings of pressure, anxiety, stress, and when we feel those emotions we really like start grinding it out, we get into those day-to-day routines and we keep piling on more to-dos and stretch ourselves really thin and we get in the hamster wheel and we stay in the hamster wheel. This thinking cycle of thoughts, emotions, actions that aren't fulfilling, that aren't exciting.
Speaker 1
And as men, as humans, we are wired to work. We're wired to produce, to try to exert energy, and it's one thing to work hard, like we've always done, and just keep our head down and work, work, work, but it's another to work hard with the crystal clear vision of the ideal future we want. So, to break out of the hamster wheel, we have to first visualize what being outside of the hamster wheel looks like, and we weren't taught how to do this. We weren't taught how to use the brain in this way. I was kind of thinking it as like we're driving a Jeep Wrangler that's totally souped up, it's got all the bells and whistles and it could climb any steep, rocky face, but we haven't been taught how to turn on four wheel drive. We're driving around, we're trying to climb up steep slopes in two wheel drive and no one taught us how to turn on the four wheel drive and use it to its maximum potential. That's what's happening in the brain when we're not focusing and planning our future. And if we want to start maximizing our brain, we wanna start doing mental rehearsals, visualizations, and athletes are an awesome example of this. Like the successful athletes, visualize their game plan, visualize what success looks like, and this is kind of a Funny example.
Speaker 1
When we were getting ready to record this podcast, brenda reminded me of this interview with Sean White. Tim Ferris was interviewing Sean White and he was talking about the Olympics and winning the next gold medal and what it looked like before that. And, yes, he visualized how he was going to drop into the half pipe and each trick he was going to do and the sequence he was going to do it. He also visualized what it was going to be like to win the gold medal and he went on to tell the story. He even, like, joked about it, said it lightheartedly that he had this vision of wearing American flag pants and being on the cover of the Rolling Stone doing this like rock star move, and it had been something that he saw Axl Rose do on the cover of Rolling Stones and he just had this visualization of him doing it with the gold medal on, and, and it happened. He actually Created it and it's kind of funny, it's kind of goofy, but it's like the same thing with throwing out that first pitch. I Imagine not just hitting that mid and what my throw looked like, but high-fiving my dad, high-fiving Brenda, like smiling, and what that feeling looked like. So what athletes do to visualize their performance and the feeling of winning, the feeling of success, is the same thing with us.
Speaker 1
If we want a New career, more time in our day, we want to be more connected with our family, we want to slow down on drinking or maybe stop gambling, the first step is getting really detailed on what success looks like like. You go there, you Ask yourself how does it feel? What do you see around you? What's your environment like? What are you wearing? How do you feel when you wake up in the morning and you're successful? Whatever that is, and you might not know exactly what you want. Sometimes we're so deep in the hamster wheel that it's hard to Pinpoint exactly what we want and what it looks like, but we do know how we want to feel. We don't want to feel stressed. We want to feel content and calm and present, confident, excited, maybe even proud. We know those emotions we want to feel and we can start there. We can start rehearsing the positive emotions, because the emotions are the magic sauce.
Embracing Control Over Our Future
Speaker 1
Emotions are energy in our body, their vibrations and Right, those two words could be a little woo energy and vibration but if you've been listening to the podcast, that's what emotions are. They're a state of energy that's moving. So However we're feeling creates our actions. It's actually what's happening in our body. If we spend time and stress and overwhelm and frustration, that energy, those emotions, keep us from taking risks or starting to say yes to the things we want and know, to the things that are not really our Priorities, and we end up creating more of what we don't want. So the flip side is using our brain to visualize what we want and start creating new emotions now, because if we're creating a higher vibration, a vibration and an energy of movement, we're gonna drive some new action. And the more that we can stay in the Action-packed emotions, the more we mentally rehearse the future that we want and get excited and feel grateful for it, the more successful, we're gonna be.
Speaker 1
So what I want you guys to take away here is that our future is a blank slate. We have total control of our future, and it probably doesn't feel that way, probably feels like there's people that get in our way, there's time that gets in our way, there's circumstances in the world that are gonna stop us, but those things are just obstacles, obstacles that we can strategize and work around. We actually have a lot more control than we think, and this is a powerful way of thinking about our life and about Whatever small or big goals we want to go after. So ask yourself Do you have your sights set on something that makes you feel Awesome? Are you looking forward to what's ahead of you? Are you looking forward to your future? And if you're not, start by just using this higher part of our brain to set your sights on the life that you want and Then start feeling excited and grateful now, and then boom, you're gonna start taking the actions to make it happen. All right, guys, have an awesome day, an awesome week, and I'll catch you next time.
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