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Hello, and welcome back. This episode I call the Past, the Present, and the Future. So I'm going to start this episode with a question. And the question is, how much time do you spend in the past, in the present, and in the future? And I'd almost love to create a visual in your mind as I take you through this episode and this experience, and just simply think about the past and the present and the future and see those as almost like blocks of time when you think about a hundred percent of your time. And so this topic has been coming up for me a lot in the last 12 months, but in a really big way in the last one or two months, I would say. And there have probably been 50 data points, but there's three really big ones that have occurred in the last, I'd say, a month. That really kind of brought this to the surface and made it worthy of a podcast topic. And so the first data point was becoming aware of a variation of quotes and statements that I've heard about the past and the future and the present. And so the first is from Lao Tzu, who was a Chinese philosopher. And his quote is, if you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present. The second one, it kind of takes that, and I'm sure there's lots of variations of his quote. In a very short form, it says, depression lives in the past and anxiety lives in the future. And so that's kind of the first big data point that brought this to a head. The second was realizing how much time, when I look back on my life, how much time I spent in the future thinking about the future. And I actually had this very profound experience. It was in a meditation, a contemplation, very deep place where I brought myself to think about the future, or at least try to, and I couldn't. And what came up in that moment is all the time I spent thinking about the future. And as I looked back, thinking about and worrying about loved ones, money losing people, bad things happening. What if the plane doesn't take off? What if the deal doesn't happen? What if they leave me? What if something gets taken away from me? What if my car breaks down on the way to the important appointment or I get in an accident? What if the session or the talk goes bad? Will they show up? What if I screw up and I could keep going? I think you get it, but wow, what an aha moment. About all the different ways I spend so Much time thinking about the future. And then the third big data point was a conversation with a deer wise friend. And I was actually sharing this aha that I had. And at that point with that aha, I was like, man, I gotta stop and I've gotta spend all my time being here now being in the present. I'm explaining that to him and then he says to me, it was so powerful and I can't remember exact words, but it was more the point than anything else. And it was something along the lines of you can't always be here now or being here now is not the way. So however he said it, it was an aha moment. And then we had this great conversation because the point made so much sense. I just let the pendulum swing way too far the other way with this thought. But the point that he made is he said, it's all about your experience. How are you experiencing it when you're in the future? Is it a good experience or a bad experience? When you're in the is it a good experience or a bad experience? And this is what we're going to drill down on because it was so helpful and so insightful. And so in preparation for this episode, as I was preparing this morning, I got to thinking about Shine and the book Shine. And so just think about that. Hopefully you've all read it. If not, I urge you to. In that book, we're talking about the past, the present, and the future. From a past standpoint, we're talking about things like shedding your shit, looking back to past traumas and past experiences, and clearing all of that from a standpoint of the present. We're talking about stillness and meditation and contemplation and journaling and prayer and being aware and being present and conscious and taking time off to just be. And from a future standpoint, we're talking about 10 year thinking, creating a 10 year vision, preparing every night thinking about what impact do you want to make on the world. So again, past stuff, present stuff, future stuff, all in Shine. And so with this, at least for me, how does it not start to twist a person in a knot trying to understand what is the right balance, what is the right mix? And there's so many different teachings out there. And I'm even reminded of a great conversation in our Mastermind with our clients, talking about presence and awareness and being here now and getting to a place where there is no time. And in that place, can't you think about the future? Aren't you supposed to plan? And so it just leads to Great conversation. All of which I'm going to do my best to stimulate those thoughts in this episode. So what is healthy and what is not healthy and how much should be spent in each because I don't know about you, but depression and anxiety, I don't want that. So back to my friend Dennis and his statement. It's about the experience. And so he asked me, he said, are you having a good experience when you're in the future or in the past? Are you having a bad experience? Is it a good one or a bad one? Is it healthy or is it unhealthy? Is it energizing or is it energy draining? And so now I just want to take you through each of those three buckets compartments, the context I'm trying to help you visually see past, present, future. And let's look at positive and negative experiences. And so let's start with the past. So positive past experiences. When I think about when my energy, when it feels healthy, when I'm having a good experience, experience is things like when I'm looking back to the past to heal something, to do research on something I'm working on to learn something. When I'm reflecting on a fond memory that gives me great joy. We can learn a lot from the past. And by the way, history tends to repeat itself. And so the more we understand about the past and history, the more we'll learn more about the future. And now let's go to the negative side of dwelling in the past. And that's that first word is anytime we're dwelling on something that doesn't make us feel good, anytime we're harboring old feelings, anytime we're like hanging on tight to the good old days, the glory days. I always like to talk about the 50 year old that still talks about being, you know, the high school quarterback. It's a let it go, man, there's a whole future in front of you. It's when we're hanging on to old wounds, old regrets, past mistakes. And now let's go to the future in positive and negative sides of future thinking. And so on the positive side, at least for me, things like planning, things like a 10 year vision, things like decision making. Sometimes we have to look out to the future to make a great decision for today. Things like preparing maybe for a big talk or a big meeting or forecasting, just simply forecasting in business. On the negative side, future could be things like worrying about things that might happen or worst case scenarios. It could be anything that's building anxiety or anticipation. It could be Impatience. And a simple rule of thumb is if it's causing anxiety, it's probably a bad, negative, unhealthy, energy draining experience. And on a side note, I want to throw this in here. As we're talking about the future. I really believe we, the Driven, have to spend more time in the future by nature. I think that we do more than most because again, we are the creators of most things on this planet. And so we're just not monks. We're monks have more of an advantage to spend time in the now, in the present. We probably spend a little more time in the future than most. And I think we need to. And so now let's not forget about the present and the power of the present. Being present, being aware, being conscious. Again, I don't want to discount that. It's vital we've got to spend time just being. But it's feeling that incredible peace when we are present and healing as a result of being present. And as powerful as being present is, are we supposed to be spending all of our time there? So back to the question at the beginning of this episode. How much time are you spending in the past, the present and the future? So just give some thought to that because right now, my clarity, at least for me, it feels like it should be like 1/3, 1/3, 1/3. And I'm not trying to prescribe a formula to anyone because who knows, this could all change a year from now. But that feels like the right balance. And when I was really deep in this again about 30 days ago, that was the equation that came up for me. That again just felt like the right balance. And I'm not quite there yet. Again, I still, I skew future much more. So it's probably mostly future. The least past and then right in the middle is present. But I still spend too much time in the future. So I'm a work in progress here. And once again, the Driven, again, I think we spend more time in the future by nature. Now, on that note, I unfortunately think that most human beings walking this earth spend most of their time in the past reliving bad experiences, unhealthy experiences, energy draining experiences. And I kind of feel like maybe that's why there's so much depression in this world. And so all I ask is just be aware, where is your mind at any given moment? Think of those three buckets. How is 100% of your time, your thinking time, where your mind is being spent in each? And as a quick side note, when you can't sleep at night, I think there's a really good chance you're either in the past or the future on bad experiences. So one little trick. Deep belly breaths and focus on your feet and it will put you right out and you'll sleep like a baby. At least in my experience. And so this one might be an episode that you literally want to go right back to the beginning and re listen to it right now cause this might be a little deep, a little heady, I don't know. But my gut just tells me this episode might be highly valuable cause it's short and sweet and go right back to the beginning and just simply listen to it from beginning to end. Thank you for listening in today. We truly appreciate you taking the time to spend with us and please tune in for the next episode. Until then, we wish you all the best and you thank freeing your true self. Stay focused and much love.