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