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Philosopher's Notes Be Your Future Self Now

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Philosopher's Notes Be Your Future Self Now

Be Your Future Self Now

The Science of Intentional Transformation

About the Book

Brian's take

Joseph Campbell once said that when you find an author who grabs you, you should read everything they’ve ever written. That’s exactly what happened for me with Ben Hardy. I’d read 10x Is Easier Than 2x and parts of The Gap and the Gain, but The Science of Scaling flipped the switch, and I went all in, joined his platform, became text buddies, and tore through every book he’s written. Ben is beyond the real deal, a rare blend of prolific craft, strategic clarity, and lived integrity. In Be Your Future Self Now, he distills cutting-edge research on prospection and Future Self into a practical operating system for intentional transformation. The punchline is simple and demanding: your future drives your present, hope gives your life meaning, and your job is to clarify what matters now, eliminate lesser goals, and ship imperfect work until your Future Self stops being a concept and becomes a fact. Big Ideas we explore include Threat, Truth, Step, Step, and The Most Important Thing.

“There is always a why or goal behind human behavior.”

There is a purpose or reason for all human activity. The more conscious and clear you are about choosing your purpose and goals, the more the how begins to take care of itself.

Dr. Benjamin Hardy

“When you are 100 percent committed and have faith, you will find the way.”

There is always a way. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ‘When you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.’

Dr. Benjamin Hardy

“Hope is an essential part of the human condition.”

Without hope, we wither and perish.

Seth Godin

“It is absurd to suppose that purpose is not present because we do not observe the agent operating.”

Aristotle

“We all have a future ahead of us.”

In 10 years, 20 years, and more, we will become our Future Selves. The question is: Who will your Future Self be? What life will you live? What will you commit yourself to?

Dr. Benjamin hardy

“Creation, or intelligent design, doesn’t exist without a specific goal or aim.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ‘Shallow men believe in luck… Strong men believe in cause and effect.

Dr. Benjamin Hardy

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

Mike Tyson

“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.”

But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.

Steve Jobs

“The height of sophistication is simplicity.”

Clare Boothe Luce

“We are kept from our goal, not by obstacles, but by a clear path to a lesser goal.”

Robert Brault

“You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

Jim Rohn

“Do, or do not.”

There is no 'try'.

Yoda

“In 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, or 20, barring fatality, you will become someone.”

The question to ask yourself is: Who will your Future Self be? That is, perhaps, the most important question any human can ask themself.

Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Threat to Your Future Self

26:38

Introduction

From the book

“As the science of prospection and Future Self continues to grow and become increasingly compelling, Future Self coaching and meditation programs are in development.

Yet, there has never been a definitive book written on the topic until now. Research among psychologists is on the cutting edge, and the science is still young. The science of Future Self will increase during the next two decades. This book is here to catch you up on the latest science to this point. In this highly practical book, you’ll learn: the science of your Future Self how to connect with and create your desired Future Self how to expand your Future Self far, far beyond what you currently imagine…. The quality of connection you have with your own Future Self determines the quality of your life and behaviors now. Research shows that the more connected you are to your own Future Self, the wiser decisions you make here and now…. This book brings together ancient wisdom and cutting-edge science to explain in simple terms how you can radically change your life. Are you ready? Let’s begin. Cheers to your Future Self.”

Brian's Notes

Joseph Campbell once said that when you find an author who grabs you, you should read EVERYTHING they’ve ever written.

That’s what I have done with Ben Hardy and his books.

Years ago, I read 10x Is Easier Than 2x and part of The Gap and the Gain (which Ben wrote with Dan Sullivan), but it wasn’t until I read The Science of Scaling that Ben’s work REALLY grabbed me. At which point, as I discussed in detail in my Notes on The Science of Scaling, I immediately signed up for Ben’s Scaling.com platform, became text buddies through some mutual friends, and bought EVERY book he’d ever written.

To put it in perspective, within a week I’d read FIVE more of his books.

At this stage, I’ve spent a lot of time with a lot of self-development authors.

Ben is beyond the real deal. I told him he reminds me of a blend of Cal Newport (who was also insanely prolific at a young age), Stephen Covey (who I consider the 20th century’s greatest self-development teacher), and Jim Collins (who I consider the greatest living business strategist). But, beyond the wisdom, Ben EMBODIES the ideals he teaches. His presence, clarity, intensity, and generosity are incredibly powerful and equally inspiring.

With that context, let’s chat about this book. It’s MIND-BOGGLINGLY good.

I know I basically recommend every book I read. I HIGHLY (!!!) recommend this book. It’s a remarkable take on the SCIENCE of being your best self by tapping into the SCIENCE of the power of living from your FUTURE self. (Get a copy here.)

I’ve read nearly EVERY positive psychology book out there by all the greats. But, somehow, I missed the compelling research being done on the power of our Future Selves. The reason I didn’t know about it is because NO ONE has written a book on it until Ben.

btw: I also didn’t know Martin Seligman and Roy Baumeister had written an academic treatise on the subject called Homo Prospectus until Ben gave me a copy of it. (Note soon!)

As you’d expect, the book is PACKED with Big Ideas. As always, I’m excited to share a handful of my favorites and help you apply the wisdom TODAY. Let’s get to work.

P.S. One of the reasons I absolutely love Ben so much is that we are inspired by the same great teachers. I just looked at my little note card on which I jotted down the authors he references that we’ve covered. There are over 25 of them, including but not limited to: Viktor Frankl (his source of inspiration!), Ellen Langer, Aristotle, Stephen Covey, Peter Drucker, Steven Pressfield, John Maxwell, Adam Grant, Seth Godin, James Allen, Anders Ericsson, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and Will Durant.

(Search those authors here to see all the Notes on their books I’ve covered!)

P.P.S. Special shout out to Lori Mage. Lori and I traded texts yesterday. We chatted about Ben and this book. She told me (goosebumps) just how much she LOVED Ben and his work and this book in particular. She’s read it multiple times. I appreciate you and all your support, Lori. I’m writing this for you. (HUG!)

BIG IDEA

Threat to Your Future Self

From the book

“To be a high-hope person, you commit to the goal, not the process.

You don’t get stuck in your current way of doing and thinking. Patiently, persistently you adapt and find new and better ways to get where you want to go. As Frankl knew, hope is rooted in a clear purpose for your future. A high-hope person, like Frankl himself, remains committed 100 percent to a pursuit, and 100 percent flexible around the path to achieve their goal. In the absence of a clear purpose for your life, your critical thinking to find ways deteriorates into finding excuses. After all, without hope, nothing really matters anyway. The first and most fundamental threat to your Future Self is not having hope in your future. Without hope, the present loses meaning. Without hope, you don’t have clear goals or a sense of purpose in your life. Without hope, there is no way. Without hope, you decay.”

Brian's Notes

The book has three parts.

In Part I, we explore “7 Threats to Your Future Self.” In Part II we explore “7 Truths about Your Future Self.” In Part III we explore “7 Steps for Being Your Future Self.”

That passage above is from Threat: Not having hope. Before we spend a minute chatting about the power of hope, here are all 7 Threats to Your Future Self:

Threat: Without hope in your future, your present loses meaning.

Threat: A reactive narrative about your past stunts your future

Threat: Being unaware of your environment creates a random evolution

Threat: Being disconnected from your Future Self leads to myopic decisions

Threat: Urgent battles and small goals keep you stuck

Threat: Not being in the arena is failing by default

Threat: Success is often the catalyst for failure

HOPE! Without it, we are literally HOPELESS--which is a one-way street to despair, depression, addiction, and all the other things we don’t want to feel.

KNOW THIS! The first person I encouraged to get this book was a dear friend who has a loved one who is struggling to find meaning in his young life. As a result, he finds himself going in and out of addictive tendencies and “failing to launch.”

I told him THIS BOOK is the one I’d have him read. Why? Because we will NEVER (!!!) create the meaning and purpose we crave unless we have hope.

Recall that science says there are THREE facets of hope. First, we must be able to see a future that is better than our present. More specifically, we need a GOAL that fires us up. Second, we need to have a sense of “agency” or confidence that we can make that better-future a reality. Third, we need to have a plan or “pathways” to get there.

If you don’t feel hopeful, I GUARANTEE you that you’re missing at least one of those things.

Ben also says: “High hope people commit 100 percent to a specific result. While their goal is unwavering, they remain highly flexible in the process or path to achieve their result.”

Spotlight on YOU. How’s YOUR hope?

Do you have a specific goal you’ve dedicated yourself to 100%? Do you believe you can get it? Do you have a plan to get there and are you willing to be flexible as you explore various paths to achieve your result?

Awesome. Go get it, Hero!

P.S. Check out our Notes on The Psychology of Hope by Rick Snyder (the godfather of hope research) and Making Hope Happen by Shane Lopez (Rick’s protégé).

BIG IDEA

Truth: Your Future Drives Your Present

From the book

“All behavior is done for an end.

Final cause is based on teleology. The word télos means ‘the end or cause of a thing.’ According to teleology, all human behavior is goal or future driven, the means to some end. The goal or end is the cause of the behavior. Health, for example, is the end of walking, losing weight, seeing the doctor, and eating well. Aristotle used final cause to explain the difference between humans and other life forms. Animals are reactive and instinctual in their actions, the direct byproduct of their environments and impulses. Humans, on the other hand, are intelligent for the very reason that we can consciously choose our actions and behaviors based on desired ends and outcomes. For Aristotle, all intelligent human action is intentional, and based on sought after causes or ends. We can envision and choose goals, and direct our behavior at our goals. Indeed, our goals are the causes of what we do.”

Brian's Notes

That’s Truth from Part II on the “7 Truths of Your Future Self.”

Here’s the quick recap of all 7 Truths:

Truth: Your future drives your present

Truth: Your Future Self is different than you expect

Truth: Your Future Self is the Pied Piper

Truth: The more vivid and detailed your Future Self, the faster you’ll progress

Truth: Failing as your Future Self is better than succeeding as your current self

Truth: Success is achieved by being true to your Future Self, nothing else

Truth: Your view of God impacts your Future Self

I repeat Truth: Your future drives your present.

Aristotle and all his wise buddies talked about this 2,500 years ago.

Here’s how modern-day philosopher Tom Morris puts it in The Art of Achievement: “Aristotle has taught me we all need a target to shoot at. We must have goals to guide our actions and energies. The Greek word for target was telos. Human beings are teleological creatures. We are hard-wired to live purposively, to have direction. Without a target to shoot at, our lives are literally aimless. Without something productive to do, without positive goals and a purpose, a human being languishes. And then one of two things happens. Aimlessness begins to shut a person down in spiritual lethargy and emptiness, or the individual lashes out and turns to destructive goals just to make something happen.”

Fun fact: As you know if you’ve been following along, I have an inch-tall, 6-inch long tattoo of HEROIC on my left forearm. As you may not know, the little icon at the end of HEROIC that kinda looks like a “}” is a symbol representing this idea of télos. More specifically, it represents the most taut point in an archer’s process right before they release an arrow.

Another fun fact: Did you know that Apollo, the patron god of philosophy, was an archer? Indeed he was. He set a clear target. Took clear aim. Then took action. Télos embodied.

Have YOU set a clear target for yourself?

Remember the first truth… Your FUTURE drives your present.

Set a clear target. Take clear aim. And go hit it.

P.S. Here’s one more fun fact. I tattooed my left forearm with “HEROIC }” and our Mission to help create a world in which 51% of humanity is flourishing by the year 2051. I also put “ANTIFRAGILE CONFIDENCE” on that arm after I kept on getting invited by elite performers to give talks on how to forge it.

You know what I put on my RIGHT forearm?

I’ll let my friend Tom Morris tell that story. Tom literally wrote the book Philosophy for Dummies. More recently, he wrote Stoicism for Dummies.

In *that* book he dropped in a picture of my tattoo and said: “The even more Ancient Greek word that the later Romans translated as virtus and that we also typically read as ‘virtue’ is the philosophically very important term areté, which was used by Greek philosophers generally to refer to the ideal peak human excellence. Areté is also often described as denoting a maximum of ability or even a superior potency for proper action. It’s meant to involve excellence in all things essentially human, from the moral and intellectual to the physical. The term encompasses the full range of qualities thought to facilitate the highest form of human potential and achievement. …

One of the authors of this book has an amazing friend, Brian Johnson, who spreads wisdom in the world and has the transliterated Greek word ARETÉ tattooed in thick block letters on the inside of his forearm, one inch tall and four inches across (see Figure 8-1). Throughout the day, he’s reminded by the bold ink of the vital importance of this concept for his life as the founder and CEO of the Heroic Public Benefit Corporation—teaching ancient and modern practices of excellence in our lives—and as a man, husband, father, and productive citizen who deeply cares about others. Areté counts. Virtue matters.”

BIG IDEA

Step: Clarify Your Contextual Purpose

From the book

“Rather than attempting to define your life’s purpose, follow Frankl’s wisdom.

Define for yourself a contextual purpose that you believe to be the absolute most important thing you could do right now. This purpose shouldn’t be beyond 10 years out. Even five years away may be a stretch…. Given your current context, what is the absolute most important thing you could achieve or realize right now? What is the next level that would be utterly amazing to achieve? Step: Clarifying your contextual purpose involves three key items: Connect with your long-term Future Self Clarify your contextual purpose through your three major priorities Set massive 12-month targets based on your three priorities.”

Brian's Notes

That’s Step from Part III: “7 Steps for Being Your Future Self.”

Let’s go through the 7 Steps real quick:

Step: Clarify your contextual purpose

Step: Eliminate lesser goals

Step: Elevate from needing to wanting to knowing

Step: Ask for exactly what you want

Step: Automate and systemize your Future Self

Step: Schedule your future self

Step: Aggressively complete imperfect work

One of the HUGE distinctions Ben makes is that you DO NOT (I repeat: You DO NOT!) need to know your entire life’s purpose in order to live with meaning and purpose.

What you need to know is THE NEXT MOST IMPORTANT thing you want to achieve. He offers some practical steps to help us get clarity.

We’ll boil it down to its essence: When you fast forward to your Future Self and imagine how awesome it will be, then bring yourself back to this moment, ask yourself… What’s THE THING you’d most like to achieve over the next 1-2 years?!

For me, as we discuss in my Notes on The Science of Scaling, I knew that we needed to find a way to ACTIVATE our Heroic movement. We simply weren’t reaching enough people to have the impact at scale we are committed to having. A big reason for that was that we were trying to do too many things and, as a result, not doing any of them at the level we could WHILE making it really hard to explain what it is we actually did. (Oops.)

After exploring 101 things we *could* do, I realized that THE THING that I thought would most powerfully activate our movement over the next 1-2 years was simple: Return to where we started with THESE Philosopher’s Notes.

More specifically, we’d decouple the Notes from our Heroic app (where they were buried and hard to find/consume/share) and GO ALL IN on seeing if we could help 1 MILLION people change their lives via PN by offering access to all 700+ Notes (soon to be 1,000!!!) for only $100 (while letting them bring a friend for free). That’s it. That’s my Thing.

WHAT’S YOURS?

P.S. In this section, Ben shares the story of Steve Jobs’s return to Apple. You know what he did when he stepped back in as CEO? He RUTHLESSLY eliminated nearly everything they were doing and RELENTLESSLY focused on elegant simplicity and absolute excellence.

P.P.S. Marcus Aurelius said something similar 2,000 years ago when he advised himself: “Never confuse yourself by visions of an entire lifetime at once… remember that it is not the weight of the future or the past that is pressing upon you, but ever that of the present alone.”

BIG IDEA

Step: Aggressively Complete Imperfect Work

From the book

“There are two fundamental principles for continuous completion.

Apply these principles consistently to invest in loss and make exponential progress toward your future self. Parkinson’s Law: Work fills the space you give it. If you give yourself three years to complete something, completion will take three years. If you give yourself three months, there’s probably a pathway. The 80 Percent Rule: Done is better than perfect. Dan Sullivan explained, ‘Eighty percent gets results, while 100 percent is still thinking about it.’ Perfectionism leads to procrastination…. Prolific is better than perfect. The more you make completion a way of life, the more you become your Future Self…. Confidence comes from completion. Completion requires commitment. Anyone can start, but few finish. The further you go, the less competition there will be. Become a master of completing and shipping. If you don’t then your Future Self will be an idea but not a fact.”

Brian's Notes

That’s Step: “Aggressively Complete Imperfect Work.”

That’s REALLY (!) REALLY (!!) REALLY (!!!) powerful, practical wisdom.

Combine Parkinson’s Law (work will expand to the amount of time you give it!) with Sullivan’s Law (done is better than perfect!) and VOILA. You’re insanely prolific.

btw: “Prolific is better than perfect” is GOOSEBUMPS genius. (Can I get an “AMEN!”?!)

Know this: One of the things I’m really excited about with the new stand-alone Philosopher’s Notes experience, is that we’ve created a series of “Quests” to help you optimize every area of your life. We have over 25 of them.

Each Quest features my all-time favorite Notes on the subject plus an hour-long master class in which I share my Top 10 favorite/most life-changing Ideas from those books.

Check out the Productivity Quest for more goodness on how to “Aggressively Complete Imperfect Work”!! For now, spotlight back on YOU. What’s your THING? And… How can you apply Parkinson’s Law and Sullivan’s Law to it RIGHT NOW?!

Know this: I’m doing it RIGHT NOW as I force myself to finish THIS Note. One of my mantras when I’m working is “FINISH. FINISH. FINISH.” Will it be perfect? No. Will I be prolific? Yes.

BIG IDEA

Be Your Future Self NOW

From the book

“As we come to the end of our time together, I have one final invitation for you.

In the next 24 hours, give yourself some space and make a time capsule of some form for your Future Self…. Make your vision clear and bold. Utilize the principles you learned in this book to connect to and clarify your Future Self…. Know that despite your best predictions, your Future Self will likely be far different than you anticipate. Life will teach you more than you expect. Your Future Self is wiser than your present self can imagine. With your time capsule in place, be your Future Self now. Being is the first step of doing. Do what your Future Self will do. Know that what you want is already yours. Commit 100 percent to your desired Future Self. Remove lesser goals. Turn every experience along the way into a gain. Cheers to your Future Self…. Go now and be your Future Self.”

Brian's Notes

Those are the final words of the book.

There’s so much I can say but I’ll keep it simple. Take a moment and imagine your Future Self. Know that THAT version of you is MUCH wiser than the current you. At choice points during your day today (or, if you feel so inspired at EVERY MOMENT TODAY!), reconnect to your best, Future Self. Then… BE YOUR FUTURE SELF NOW!

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