May 14, 2025 • 12 mins
I was thinking about some concepts that are seemingly at odds with each other, but they aren’t. We’re only alive today. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow hasn’t happened. Living in the present is all there is, but does that mean you can’t learn from the past or plan for the future?
No. Let’s break it down. How do you use today to make your life better? If you have regrets from the past, you can use today to reflect on them, learn, adjust, and grow from those things. For the future, how do you live in the present and plan for the future? Isn’t that going against living in the moment? I don’t think so.
We can use today to visualize our ideal future. It sets a target for where we want to go. Once you have that vision, you can then identify what you need to do daily to move towards it.
What does today look like? We’ve decided what we’ve done in the past that we don’t like, identified things we want to change, and now we can do things differently. We’ve created a vision for what we want in our future. That should give us some general ideas on what we need to do daily to move towards it. We don’t need all the answers, we just need to move forward with that target in mind.
Write down a list of five things that’ll move you forward. Those things can be action steps to get you closer to your future, could be habits to correct past behavior to become the person you want to be, or habits that your future self needs to get you where you want to go.
Knock out a list of 5 things that move you forward every day. You’re living only today while working towards the future and adjusting based on lessons from the past. Is it easy? Hell no. But it’s worth it.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
So I had recorded like half ofthis, and then my dog started
(00:04):
puking right next to me andtotally threw me all off. So I'm
just gonna start over again. Notthat you guys even know that
that happened, but let's see ifI can do this a little smoother.
So the idea I wanted to talkabout today is living in the
present, and so that's somethingI think about a lot, and it's
(00:24):
when, when you're trying to livein the present, it seems like
it's kind of at odds with somethings. So for me, I like to
look at the past to learnlessons and become a better
person. Like things that Ididn't like about myself. So for
example, in the past, I waslike, I've said before, I was a
little more, you know, of anangry person. I had trouble
(00:45):
managing my emotions. I wasreactive, I was defensive, and
so when I look back to the past,there are things about myself
back then that I wanted tocorrect, and I've, I've made a
lot of progress. I've, you know,I don't know if that's ever
finished work, but I'm not thesame person that I was, and I
(01:06):
had to look to the past in orderto to get those lessons. So the
other flip side of it is, whenyou're living in the present,
you know, they say, Well, Idon't know if they say this when
you're living in the present.Does that mean you can't look to
the future? And I don't thinkthat's the case, either. So the
(01:30):
idea something that I do is Ivisualize, and most of the time,
most of my visualizationpractice is me visualizing, sort
of the future of my business.That's a lot of my focus is
building this business. So Imight visualize what the
facility looks like. I'll bewalking through the facility,
you know, a meeting with teammembers, and doing all these
(01:50):
things, all of this stuff, inorder to kind of create the
vision of what I want toaccomplish. The people that are
on my team, the size of my team,the size of the facility that
I'm walking through, and thatsort of paints a picture for
what I want in the future. Imight also visualize, you know,
the physical shape that I'm in,the quality of my relationship,
(02:12):
you know, all of these kind ofthings, you know, the dogs that
I have, all this stuff like,I'll, I'll visualize it to the
point where it feels real. Andso if I'm doing those things.
Does that mean that I'm notliving in the present? And I
don't think that is the case. Imean, granted, I am looking to
the past, that I am looking tothe future, but it's so that I
can distill down things that Ineed to do today in order to
(02:36):
correct the things from the pastand move myself towards the
future. So the idea of living inthe present, what does today
look like when you have thatinformation? For example, when I
was sort of in the thick ofthings, you know, being too
angry and stuff it, thinkingback on the times that I was
acting in ways that I wasn'tproud of, that led me to
(02:59):
meditating. So the daily actionto try to correct those things,
for me was meditation, and Ithink I might have read a book
or two about it. If you'rereally far into it, maybe you
may need to have some kind ofcounseling or something. I don't
know. I never did that, butthat's taking things from the
past, figuring out what you wantto correct, and then using today
(03:22):
to try to correct those things.And then, so if you look at the
future, and I'm visualizing whatI want in the future, then I can
break down what are the dailysteps that I have to take to
move myself forward. And itmight be overwhelming, and it
was for me when I was visitvisualizing this facility, and
(03:43):
the facility has gotten biggerand bigger as the company grows,
so the future ideal seems moreand more attainable as I'm
moving through, you know,building this business. But when
I first started visualizing it,it says, like, you kind of take
the you know, what do you callit? Like, the breaks off of it,
and you just visualize exactlywhat you want, even if it's like
(04:07):
seems so far out of reach. Andso when I'm doing that, and when
a lot of people are doing that,what they run into is, they're
like, Well, I have no idea howto build that. And that's
actually something they sayabout visualization is, is when
you're visualizing in thefuture, you're not trying to get
bogged down by how you're goingto accomplish those things.
(04:28):
Like, let's say you'revisualizing, you know, being a
multi millionaire or something,and you're making minimum wage.
Like, it's going to be very hardfor you to think about, like,
what? How do you even do that?You don't worry about that. When
you're visualizing, you're,you're mainly just painting a
picture of what you want. Andthen over time, you just start,
(04:49):
you start figuring things out,you know, like for for me
personally, if I'm visualizingthis big facility, you know, I
have no idea how to make that.Don't know what it would cost. I
don't know how big my companyneeds to be, but at the same
time, I can start learninglessons so that I can create
simple action steps every day.So with that in mind, what is,
(05:13):
what is your day look like,whether or not you're correcting
things from your past or you'retrying to work towards your
future, today is the day thatyou can work on those things.
And I feel like that's how youlive in the present while still
utilizing the the past and thefuture. And so I just do it with
a simple power list by Andy forseller. You can look up, look it
(05:34):
up from him, if you want, butall it really is is five things
that move you forward. So itcould be five things that
correct things from the past. Itcould be five things that
correct or sorry move yourselftowards that future goal. Or it
could be a mix of things. Solet's say, for example, like my
(05:55):
power power list a lot of timeswill look like a little mix of
both. You know, like I want tobe in better shape so, and I'm
trying to stay consistent withworking out. So I have that on
my list. If, if it becomes ahabit, I don't have to have it
on the list anymore. But I kindof fall, fall on and off track
(06:15):
with that. I'm on track rightnow. I've been working out
pretty much every day, and,like, I've been walking my dog
in the morning, and that's kindof like, I guess I could talk
about that, because that'ssomething that really helps me,
is tying habits to other habits.It's, I think it's, I think it's
both in the book tiny habits andatomic habits. So if you're
(06:37):
trying to form new habits,atomic habits is the most
popular one, but they talkabout, I don't remember what the
phrase is that they use, butit's basically, let's say you
already have a habit that youlike to do that's already
ingrained in you, like, if youdo something in the morning,
like I, I don't do this anymorebecause I switched it, but it
(06:58):
used to be where I would wake upin the morning and the first
thing I would do is make a cupof coffee. So I tied the habit
of reading to that lately. Theway that I tied that I got
myself back into working out isit started with, I have this
dog. She's going to be 15 inAugust, and I want her to, you
know, have the best lifepossible. And she still acts
(07:22):
really young and all that stuff.So I just want to make sure that
she's, you know, good, gettingall the exercise she needs,
eating healthy and all thatstuff. So I'm, like, all right,
I'm going to commit to, like,the first thing I do when I wake
up is she and I are going to gotake a walk around the block.
And since she's, like, kind ofold, you know, I don't really
want to walk too far, so it'slike a quick walk. It's like 10
(07:44):
minutes or something. So Istarted that, and that became a
habit. And she keeps meaccountable, because she's not
gonna, she's not gonna let itslide. She knows that's what's
gonna happen. So as soon as wewake up, she's staring at me.
She's hopping around. So that'sa pretty easy habit to to to
keep now. So then I was like,All right, I gotta get I gotta
get back into working out. Sothe first thing I did was, when
(08:07):
I was doing the walk, I wouldjust grab a 35 pound kettlebell
and just carry it. So it's like,it's a, what, I don't remember,
what it's called. It's like asingle arm farmer's carry or
something. And so you justswitch, switch hands when you
get tired. And so that kind oflike made the work, the walk a
little bit more. You know,fitness geared, I guess you
(08:29):
could say it's not like aworkout to do that, but it was
something, and then that's now ahabit. And so what I did after
that is I said, like, as soon asI get home, the first thing I do
is do a workout, like a shortone. So that's been sticking, so
I already know that I'm going towalk my dog. She's not going to
(08:51):
let it slide. So that's a habitthat's easy to keep. If I'm
going to walk anyway, I might aswell just carry a kettlebell.
There's a lot of benefits to it,grip strength, trees, increases
increases bone density and allthis kind of shit, you know. So
there's good benefits to that.So you feel like you're doing
something. And then if I'm gonnaget home, I'm like, I can't do
anything else until I do aworkout. And so I like to do
(09:14):
these, like, every minute on theminute things, and I have this
little timer. And so, like, youknow, whatever it is like, if
it's what I started with, islike 10 air squats, 10 push ups,
and then 10 kettlebell rows witha 53 pound kettlebell. And so
you do each one of these thingsevery minute. And I was just
(09:38):
doing it for nine minutes. So Igot the 10 minute walk, and then
the nine minute workout. Sothat's like 1920 minutes of
working out or exercise, if youwill.
So that's tying those habitstogether, and now it's starting
to get to where it's it'ssomething that I'm just going to
do, and if I slip off track,then I can put that back on my
(09:59):
power list. Right? So I got, Igot a little sidetracked here
about all that shit, but I thinkthat's important, actually, if
you think about it, when you'rewhen you're talking about, what
are the five things going tomove you forward? A lot of
times, it's, what are the habitsyou need to develop to become
the person that you want to be?What are the habits that I need
to develop to get my business tothe place that I need to get it
(10:23):
to. And so a couple things onthe list will be business
things. A couple of things onthe list might be personal
development things, or whateverit is. So you're moving yourself
forward based on lessons youlearned from the past, based on
what you want to what you wantto achieve in the future. So
that's how I think you do it. Idon't know if there's anything
(10:44):
else I can say. I think you'restill being very present,
focused, while utilizing boththe past and the future. Because
I see these videos and I myalgorithm is kind of like
personal development type shit.So, like, I think this all
spawned from I saw a video wheresomebody was like, you're only
(11:07):
alive today. And it's a reminderthat I I always need to
remember, because I do have alot of anxiety about the future.
I don't trip about the past asmuch as I used to, but I used to
quite a bit. I used to reallylike, dislike the person that I
used to be, until I startedfiguring out, like, you know,
what that person was learninglessons that I can use today and
(11:32):
I'm still working on, like, thestressing out about the future
thing. So that's why I try toget back to this whole living in
the present. But what startedthis whole thought process is
like, when I went into thecomments just to see what people
were saying this one lady waslike, well, so how do I plan for
my vacation, if I'm not thinkingabout the future, how do I plan
for my vacation? And it waslike, this is this is how I
(11:55):
would do it. So been forgettingto throw this in there, because
it feels weird to me. I did it acouple times. The only way
podcasts grow is by peoplesharing them. So if you do like
this and you think there's anyvalue, or somebody else would
find any value, please share it.You could throw it on your
(12:17):
Instagram. You could just sendit somebody, or just tell
somebody about it, I wouldreally appreciate it. So yeah,
learn from the past. Check out,or think about your future,
where you want to go. Break thatdown into five simple tasks that
move you forward, and thenthat's what you're doing today,
and that's how you're living inthe moment. I believe, all
(12:38):
right, I'll see you next timeyou
all right,
appreciate each and every one ofyou guys who are supporting the
cause and continue to spread thelove and yeah, stay up.
So I had recorded like half ofthis, and then my dog started
(00:04):
puking right next to me andtotally threw me all off. So I'm
just gonna start over again. Notthat you guys even know that
that happened, but let's see ifI can do this a little smoother.
So the idea I wanted to talkabout today is living in the
present, and so that's somethingI think about a lot, and it's
(00:24):
when, when you're trying to livein the present, it seems like
it's kind of at odds with somethings. So for me, I like to
look at the past to learnlessons and become a better
person. Like things that Ididn't like about myself. So for
example, in the past, I waslike, I've said before, I was a
little more, you know, of anangry person. I had trouble
(00:45):
managing my emotions. I wasreactive, I was defensive, and
so when I look back to the past,there are things about myself
back then that I wanted tocorrect, and I've, I've made a
lot of progress. I've, you know,I don't know if that's ever
finished work, but I'm not thesame person that I was, and I
(01:06):
had to look to the past in orderto to get those lessons. So the
other flip side of it is, whenyou're living in the present,
you know, they say, Well, Idon't know if they say this when
you're living in the present.Does that mean you can't look to
the future? And I don't thinkthat's the case, either. So the
(01:30):
idea something that I do is Ivisualize, and most of the time,
most of my visualizationpractice is me visualizing, sort
of the future of my business.That's a lot of my focus is
building this business. So Imight visualize what the
facility looks like. I'll bewalking through the facility,
you know, a meeting with teammembers, and doing all these
(01:50):
things, all of this stuff, inorder to kind of create the
vision of what I want toaccomplish. The people that are
on my team, the size of my team,the size of the facility that
I'm walking through, and thatsort of paints a picture for
what I want in the future. Imight also visualize, you know,
the physical shape that I'm in,the quality of my relationship,
(02:12):
you know, all of these kind ofthings, you know, the dogs that
I have, all this stuff like,I'll, I'll visualize it to the
point where it feels real. Andso if I'm doing those things.
Does that mean that I'm notliving in the present? And I
don't think that is the case. Imean, granted, I am looking to
the past, that I am looking tothe future, but it's so that I
can distill down things that Ineed to do today in order to
(02:36):
correct the things from the pastand move myself towards the
future. So the idea of living inthe present, what does today
look like when you have thatinformation? For example, when I
was sort of in the thick ofthings, you know, being too
angry and stuff it, thinkingback on the times that I was
acting in ways that I wasn'tproud of, that led me to
(02:59):
meditating. So the daily actionto try to correct those things,
for me was meditation, and Ithink I might have read a book
or two about it. If you'rereally far into it, maybe you
may need to have some kind ofcounseling or something. I don't
know. I never did that, butthat's taking things from the
past, figuring out what you wantto correct, and then using today
(03:22):
to try to correct those things.And then, so if you look at the
future, and I'm visualizing whatI want in the future, then I can
break down what are the dailysteps that I have to take to
move myself forward. And itmight be overwhelming, and it
was for me when I was visitvisualizing this facility, and
(03:43):
the facility has gotten biggerand bigger as the company grows,
so the future ideal seems moreand more attainable as I'm
moving through, you know,building this business. But when
I first started visualizing it,it says, like, you kind of take
the you know, what do you callit? Like, the breaks off of it,
and you just visualize exactlywhat you want, even if it's like
(04:07):
seems so far out of reach. Andso when I'm doing that, and when
a lot of people are doing that,what they run into is, they're
like, Well, I have no idea howto build that. And that's
actually something they sayabout visualization is, is when
you're visualizing in thefuture, you're not trying to get
bogged down by how you're goingto accomplish those things.
(04:28):
Like, let's say you'revisualizing, you know, being a
multi millionaire or something,and you're making minimum wage.
Like, it's going to be very hardfor you to think about, like,
what? How do you even do that?You don't worry about that. When
you're visualizing, you're,you're mainly just painting a
picture of what you want. Andthen over time, you just start,
(04:49):
you start figuring things out,you know, like for for me
personally, if I'm visualizingthis big facility, you know, I
have no idea how to make that.Don't know what it would cost. I
don't know how big my companyneeds to be, but at the same
time, I can start learninglessons so that I can create
simple action steps every day.So with that in mind, what is,
(05:13):
what is your day look like,whether or not you're correcting
things from your past or you'retrying to work towards your
future, today is the day thatyou can work on those things.
And I feel like that's how youlive in the present while still
utilizing the the past and thefuture. And so I just do it with
a simple power list by Andy forseller. You can look up, look it
(05:34):
up from him, if you want, butall it really is is five things
that move you forward. So itcould be five things that
correct things from the past. Itcould be five things that
correct or sorry move yourselftowards that future goal. Or it
could be a mix of things. Solet's say, for example, like my
(05:55):
power power list a lot of timeswill look like a little mix of
both. You know, like I want tobe in better shape so, and I'm
trying to stay consistent withworking out. So I have that on
my list. If, if it becomes ahabit, I don't have to have it
on the list anymore. But I kindof fall, fall on and off track
(06:15):
with that. I'm on track rightnow. I've been working out
pretty much every day, and,like, I've been walking my dog
in the morning, and that's kindof like, I guess I could talk
about that, because that'ssomething that really helps me,
is tying habits to other habits.It's, I think it's, I think it's
both in the book tiny habits andatomic habits. So if you're
(06:37):
trying to form new habits,atomic habits is the most
popular one, but they talkabout, I don't remember what the
phrase is that they use, butit's basically, let's say you
already have a habit that youlike to do that's already
ingrained in you, like, if youdo something in the morning,
like I, I don't do this anymorebecause I switched it, but it
(06:58):
used to be where I would wake upin the morning and the first
thing I would do is make a cupof coffee. So I tied the habit
of reading to that lately. Theway that I tied that I got
myself back into working out isit started with, I have this
dog. She's going to be 15 inAugust, and I want her to, you
know, have the best lifepossible. And she still acts
(07:22):
really young and all that stuff.So I just want to make sure that
she's, you know, good, gettingall the exercise she needs,
eating healthy and all thatstuff. So I'm, like, all right,
I'm going to commit to, like,the first thing I do when I wake
up is she and I are going to gotake a walk around the block.
And since she's, like, kind ofold, you know, I don't really
want to walk too far, so it'slike a quick walk. It's like 10
(07:44):
minutes or something. So Istarted that, and that became a
habit. And she keeps meaccountable, because she's not
gonna, she's not gonna let itslide. She knows that's what's
gonna happen. So as soon as wewake up, she's staring at me.
She's hopping around. So that'sa pretty easy habit to to to
keep now. So then I was like,All right, I gotta get I gotta
get back into working out. Sothe first thing I did was, when
(08:07):
I was doing the walk, I wouldjust grab a 35 pound kettlebell
and just carry it. So it's like,it's a, what, I don't remember,
what it's called. It's like asingle arm farmer's carry or
something. And so you justswitch, switch hands when you
get tired. And so that kind oflike made the work, the walk a
little bit more. You know,fitness geared, I guess you
(08:29):
could say it's not like aworkout to do that, but it was
something, and then that's now ahabit. And so what I did after
that is I said, like, as soon asI get home, the first thing I do
is do a workout, like a shortone. So that's been sticking, so
I already know that I'm going towalk my dog. She's not going to
(08:51):
let it slide. So that's a habitthat's easy to keep. If I'm
going to walk anyway, I might aswell just carry a kettlebell.
There's a lot of benefits to it,grip strength, trees, increases
increases bone density and allthis kind of shit, you know. So
there's good benefits to that.So you feel like you're doing
something. And then if I'm gonnaget home, I'm like, I can't do
anything else until I do aworkout. And so I like to do
(09:14):
these, like, every minute on theminute things, and I have this
little timer. And so, like, youknow, whatever it is like, if
it's what I started with, islike 10 air squats, 10 push ups,
and then 10 kettlebell rows witha 53 pound kettlebell. And so
you do each one of these thingsevery minute. And I was just
(09:38):
doing it for nine minutes. So Igot the 10 minute walk, and then
the nine minute workout. Sothat's like 1920 minutes of
working out or exercise, if youwill.
So that's tying those habitstogether, and now it's starting
to get to where it's it'ssomething that I'm just going to
do, and if I slip off track,then I can put that back on my
(09:59):
power list. Right? So I got, Igot a little sidetracked here
about all that shit, but I thinkthat's important, actually, if
you think about it, when you'rewhen you're talking about, what
are the five things going tomove you forward? A lot of
times, it's, what are the habitsyou need to develop to become
the person that you want to be?What are the habits that I need
to develop to get my business tothe place that I need to get it
(10:23):
to. And so a couple things onthe list will be business
things. A couple of things onthe list might be personal
development things, or whateverit is. So you're moving yourself
forward based on lessons youlearned from the past, based on
what you want to what you wantto achieve in the future. So
that's how I think you do it. Idon't know if there's anything
(10:44):
else I can say. I think you'restill being very present,
focused, while utilizing boththe past and the future. Because
I see these videos and I myalgorithm is kind of like
personal development type shit.So, like, I think this all
spawned from I saw a video wheresomebody was like, you're only
(11:07):
alive today. And it's a reminderthat I I always need to
remember, because I do have alot of anxiety about the future.
I don't trip about the past asmuch as I used to, but I used to
quite a bit. I used to reallylike, dislike the person that I
used to be, until I startedfiguring out, like, you know,
what that person was learninglessons that I can use today and
(11:32):
I'm still working on, like, thestressing out about the future
thing. So that's why I try toget back to this whole living in
the present. But what startedthis whole thought process is
like, when I went into thecomments just to see what people
were saying this one lady waslike, well, so how do I plan for
my vacation, if I'm not thinkingabout the future, how do I plan
for my vacation? And it waslike, this is this is how I
(11:55):
would do it. So been forgettingto throw this in there, because
it feels weird to me. I did it acouple times. The only way
podcasts grow is by peoplesharing them. So if you do like
this and you think there's anyvalue, or somebody else would
find any value, please share it.You could throw it on your
(12:17):
Instagram. You could just sendit somebody, or just tell
somebody about it, I wouldreally appreciate it. So yeah,
learn from the past. Check out,or think about your future,
where you want to go. Break thatdown into five simple tasks that
move you forward, and thenthat's what you're doing today,
and that's how you're living inthe moment. I believe, all
(12:38):
right, I'll see you next timeyou
all right,
appreciate each and every one ofyou guys who are supporting the
cause and continue to spread thelove and yeah, stay up.
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