Transcription
I am really excited about this episode. In today's episode, I'm going to talk to you about how to collapse the gap between where you are today and the future that you envision: the wealth, the health, the material things, the clarity, the fastest way to accelerate your potential. And it's called identity shifting.
I just taught this process to my 100K private clients, and I'm going to give you this step-by-step process. So stay until the end. Take notes if you can, because this is really power. And it has four parts. The first part is getting absolute clarity and defining what you want your future vision to look like. The next step is to identify who you would need to be within that vision. The third piece is to audit your current thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. And the fourth is a simple daily practice that I'm going to give you in order to start reinforcing your future self.
Now, this is one of the tools that I use to go from broke and really unclear about what I want wanted to do in the world and in my life, to creating a $30 million coaching company with the woman of my dreams, helping millions of people, and feeling really good about myself and my life. So if you've been in personal growth for a while, you understand this idea that your thoughts are creating your reality. And that if you want to, for example, get out of financial insecurity, you have to have thoughts and feelings like you're wealthy now. Or if you're struggling in your health, or you have chronic pain or a chronic health condition, the key to materializing wellness is to have thoughts and feelings that right here, right now, you are healthy. And then you'll manifest health for yourself.
But the challenge is, how do we do that? How can you think and feel a certain way consistently and long enough to change your reality when your reality is right in front of you as evidence of the fact that you don't have enough money, or you aren't healthy, or you are alone, or your relationship isn't working? So I'm going to give you this four-step process. It's super powerful. It's called identity shifting, and it's going to allow you to shift your thoughts and shift your emotions right here, right now, so that you can bring your future self into the present moment and start accelerating the change that you're looking for.
I'm going to start by sharing with you how I discovered this process. And it was during Christmas. Uh, I was running an online challenge, and I had some goals in terms of how that challenge was going to perform and enroll people into some of our courses and our programs. And I put a lot of energy and a lot of effort into it. I applied the best scientific marketing principles I could. It was phenomenal content. And I had run this online marketing campaign before, so I knew how it had performed in the past. I had about 100 people enrolling into the program. My new goal was 200 people. I ran a series of webinars, put a lot of energy and effort into it, and 20 people enrolled. And it was really confusing, frankly. It felt devastating. It didn't make any sense.
And I had just finished the, the, what's called the cart close, where we closed the program. And it was around December 22nd. And I came down into the living room. And in the living room, everything was set up for this beautiful Christmas. It was the first Christmas we were having in our new home in Puerto Rico. Uh, it was really the first Christmas for my son Gabriel, because in his first Christmas, he was like four months old. Now he was conscious and aware. There's Christmas carols playing. My wife and, uh, my mother-in-law, her mother, are, you know, putting presents under the Christmas tree, and everybody's having a great time. And I realize I'm really stuck in my head. I was like, "Why didn't this thing work out for me? And what is this going to mean for our business? And how is this going to impact us financially?" Because it was during a period of contraction in our business. And I started worrying about money. And I started questioning, "What did I do wrong?" You know, the common thoughts and patterns that so many of us are living on a daily basis.
And I had this thought, which was, "Well, you know, if I had another $10 million in the bank, I wouldn't even be worried about this." And then there was sort of this inner voice that said, "Really? This worry is a habit. No matter how much money you have, you're going to always worry about financial insecurity until you develop a new habit of feeling financially secure." And so in this inner conversation I was having, I was like, "Okay, well, if I was confident, let's say I was $10 million Dave, so that whatever happened in this marketing campaign really had no material impact on me, how would $10 million Dave be thinking, feeling, and doing right now in the living room, just just before Christmas, with his son and the Christmas carols playing, in a beautiful tree, in his wife and his mother-in-law?"
And I realized that this identity, $10 million Dave, was a confident David. It was a secure David. It was a David who would have experienced that missed expectation around the marketing campaign and said, "Oh, that's really no big deal. What can I learn from it?" And that David would be enjoying the time with his son. That David would be appreciating the Christmas carols. That David would say to his wife and his mother-in-law, "Wow, you've done such an amazing job decorating for Christmas. This is such an incredible experience that we're going to have, really, this first Christmas with our son."
And so I actually did those things. I stopped worrying about what I did wrong. I stopped questioning, you know, um, whether or not this was going to have a financial impact on me. I stopped all of the worry. And I started, in that moment, being $10 million Dave. And $10 million Dave was not someone who was on a private jet or buying a big yacht. $10 million Dave was a guy who was present to his family in this beautiful experience in our living room, just before Christmas. So in that moment, I started to identity shift. I started being $10 million Dave.
Now, so I want you to start thinking about what you want in your future, right? You, I'm sure that you want more financial abundance. I'm sure that you want to, you have goals and dreams. You want your business to grow. You want to start your own business. You want your relationship to be amazing with your partner. This is the first part of this four-step process. I want you to list out, whether you're listening and you make mental note or you're actually writing this down, I want you to list out your goals and your dreams. It might be to be a best-selling author. It might be to run big events. It might be to elevate yourself in your career and become a senior vice president within your organization. It might be for you to be flexible and healthy and feel great in your body, because right now that's not your experience. What does your dream vision look like? And this is part one.
And if you are writing this out, I basically create three columns on a page. And in the first column, I write down what all of my future goals and dreams are. Then I want you to assume that these goals and dreams are already complete. And in column two, I want you to write down how you would be feeling, what you would be thinking, and what you would be doing, knowing that everything that you set out to achieve was already accomplished. And so, for example, you wouldn't be worrying about your finances. You would feel financially secure. You would be generous with your money. You'd probably be donating more and be giving to philanthropy or starting another business. Right? If you were feeling healthy and vibrant, you would be exercising. You would be moving. You would be appreciating your body. Um, you wouldn't be spending time worrying about whether this chronic health condition was ever going to go away. If, for example, you want to have an extraordinary relationship, whether you're in a relationship right now that's not extraordinary, or you're not in your soulmate relationship, if you were in your soulmate relationship, because that was part of your vision, right? That was one of your goals in column one, then what would you be thinking, feeling, and doing differently as a result of that already having been accomplished? Right? You'd be relaxed in the relationship realm of your life. You wouldn't be on dating apps, probably. You wouldn't be worried that you'd be alone for the rest of your life. You would be confident and secure, knowing that you had finally met your soulmate.
And this has a ripple effect. You can write down some other qualities of this future version of yourself. You might be more peaceful overall. You might be more calm. You might be more compassionate. You might be more present in the present moment. For me, again, in that moment, if I was my future self, what I would be doing was listening and appreciating the beautiful music, paying attention to the lights and the ornaments on the tree, and I could describe that as being present for the beautiful experiences of my life. So that's in column two. And at the top of column two, I want you to name this future version of you. Right? Maybe it's Confident Chris. Maybe it's Peaceful Patty. Right? For me, it was $10 million David, or King David. Right? When I'm showing up as King David, or you're showing up as Queen Carol, right? Or you're showing up as Princess Samantha, right? Or Prince Jonathan. You know, how are you showing up at your best? What is the name that you give that version of yourself? What, as you know, that everything that you've ever set out to achieve is already complete? Because so much of the friction that we experience in our lives is this, um, gap between where we want to be and where we are. That's the friction. That's where our limiting beliefs and our traumas insert themselves, the feeling like we're not good enough, they comparing us to other people. If you had already accomplished everything you set out to accomplish, would you be comparing yourself to other people in your Facebook or Instagram or social media newsfeed? No, of course you wouldn't. So when you think about how King you or Queen you would be showing up, you'd be utilizing social media to share the joys of your life and to appreciate what other people are sharing and achieving. Right? That's how you'd be using social media as King or Queen you.
The third column is who you're being today. And really, who you're being at, what I would call, like, your lesser self. Who you're being in your limiting beliefs. Who you're being in your fear. What are the limiting beliefs, the thoughts, the feelings, the actions that you're engaging in, because you actually have a fear that you're never going to accomplish this full potential? Right? This experience of financial insecurity, procrastination, self-sabotage, indecision, comparing yourself to other people, worrying that you don't have enough, worrying that you're not good enough, codependence, people-pleasing, right? These are all the defense mechanisms that that we're using as the current version of ourselves that don't serve us. They reveal what in recovery we call our character defects or our character flaws. And it's important for you to audit or inventory these. So this is what I would put in a third column. These are all the ways that you're being right now, actually thinking that this is the way to achieve your goals. So just notice this. These are, and I, I make a sports analogy. These are the plays that you're running, actually thinking that you're going to achieve your goals this way. You think that worrying about money is going to help you achieve the financial abundance that is part of your vision or your future. You think that worrying, at an unconscious level, that worrying that you're not good enough, or that you're not doing good enough, is going to help you achieve your goals. You're believing that hustle and grind and controlling your circumstances and responding out of anger is a way to actually achieve your goals and your vision. This is what we do at an unconscious level. We're running these really bad plays, thinking they're going to take us to the promised land, when in reality, these are exactly the plays that will keep us stuck where we are. The plays that you want to be running, again, if you make a sports analogy, like a basketball team or a football team, they run plays on the field or plays on the court. The plays that you want to be running are the psychological, emotional, and action-taking plays that are in your second column, that you already completed your future self now already realized would be doing in the present moment. Those are the plays that, if you run them consistently over time, will actually produce the outcomes of the dreams you have in column one.
And so, as you do this, now I want you to name that lesser, less mature, it's not the higher self version of you character that you're being today. So for me, it's Worrisome Dave, David the Wor, Overwhelmed Dave. And now you're very clear on these two versions of yourself. Who you're being right now that isn't conducive to actually producing the vision you have for your life: Overwhelmed Dave, Not Good Enough Dave, Controlling Dave. And you're clear on the thoughts, the actions, and the emotions that that version of you is taking on a daily basis. The plays that you're currently running, the bad plays. You're also clear on the future version of yourself that has accomplished all of these things, how you would be thinking, how you would be feeling, and what you would be doing broadly speaking, and you've named it: King David, Queen Carol.
So this is the three-step process that then allows us or creates the awareness to be in the practice on a daily, moment-by-moment basis. And this is the important part: to get into a practice of it. Now that you have an awareness of what you want, who you'd be once you have it, and who you're being now in the absence of it, you now have a choice on a day-to-day basis to choose who you want to be. Are you going to be Overwhelmed Dave, or are you going to be King David? Are you going to be Controlling Susan, or are you going to be $10 million Susan?
Hey, it's David. Just a quick interruption to your regularly scheduled episode by your favorite sponsor. I want to tell you about my book. It is available on Amazon right here, right now. A Changed Mind. Go beyond self-awareness, rewire your brain, and re-engineer your reality. In this little book are all the frameworks, the tools, the methodologies that I talk about on this show, and that I've used to actually change my mind, and that tens of thousands of other people have used to transform their bank accounts, their businesses, their relationships, their health, their spiritual connection, everything that you want to achieve. This is the way to achieve it. And Amazon has done us a good one right now. It's significantly discounted, so you can go and pick up your copy, or better yet, pick up a copy for a friend too. There's nothing better than giving the gift of transformation. Right now, hop on over to Amazon. There's a link in the show notes. And if you love the book as much as I loved writing it for you, do me a favor. Let me know that and leave a review. And now back to your regularly scheduled episode.
Now, the, the art of this and the beauty of this is that choosing to be our King or Queen selves in the present moment, and what that looks like, really depends on how the present moment is showing up. So again, going back to my story, just before Christmas, King David wasn't about beating his chest and, you know, being confident and making deals and, you know, wearing an expensive watch in the living room. That, that's not what King David is. And this is why so many people are confused about how to be the future self now. King David is confident, calm, and relaxed, rather than worried, overwhelmed, and comparing. And so in that environment, what confident, calm, relaxed looks like is not thinking about how the campaign that I just ran performed, but being present and appreciating people and appreciating the environment. That's what King David would do.
And so one of my clients, for example, even though he has some level of financial prosperity and abundance in his life, by, by any outside perspective, he still worries about money. So many of us worry about money. And so many of us think that once we have more money, we'll stop worrying about it. There's some truth to that, but there's a lot of falsehood to that. The habit of worrying about money is just a habit that we want to break, regardless of how much money we have. And so what he realized with his version of $10 million Jared, right? Calm, confident King Jared, kind, compassionate, loving, caring about others, not self-centered, not worried about himself. He would actually tip more at restaurants. So he started tipping more now. He started tipping more now because that's what King Jared would do. So how you be the King or Queen or higher version of yourself is really dependent upon the situation or the circumstance. But the commitment is to start being in the practice of being your future self now.
Why is that important? Well, because if you had already accomplished all of these goals and dreams, you would know what you did to accomplish them, wouldn't you? Think about it for a moment. I'm going to repeat it. If you had already, uh, bought the yacht, built the business, found the love of your life, um, had the child that you desired, developed, uh, created the spiritual, um, development that you were looking for, an awakening that you were looking for, anything that's in your dreams or goals, lived in the place where you wanted to live, then you would know how that happened. And so what you're seeking right now are the thoughts, the ideas, and you're wanting to create the synchronicities and the coincidences that are going to create that future version of you. If you practice being that future version of you now, it accelerates your ability to tap into those thoughts, those emotions, those actions, those ideas, and to create those synchronicities. You start being your future self now because your future self has access to that information. And so if you be your future self now, you will access that information more rapidly.
And so again, this is, this is one of the key tools that I used to build a $30 million coaching company, where I have a podcast that has a million downloads a month, and I have a live event that attracts over a thousand amazing people a year. Is I started having to act the way that David would act, even before I had my first client, even before I wrote my book, even before I launched my podcast. I had to think about what are the psychological and emotional qualities of that David, and can I start being that David now? As I started practicing that David, that's what gave me accelerated access to all the thoughts, the ideas, and the willingness to take the action, and the ability to create the coincidences and the synchronicities that I look back on now that produced all the results.
And just think about it for a moment. All you have is the present moment. So you have this present moment right now, and then it seemingly passes, and then what's available to you right here, right now, is the next present moment. And so we think that we're going to arrive at some future destination where we've just become King David or Queen Carol or the best version of yourself. But the way that actually happens is to practice that now. And if you practice that now, you're going to think, feel, and do like that future version of yourself. And if you do that again in the next present moment, and again in the next present moment, and again in the next present moment, we would actually look at it and go, "Wow, you're being your future self now." And within a short period of time, your external circumstances have to reflect you being that person. In other words, you can't be acting like a millionaire consistently over a period of time and not become a millionaire because you're acting like a millionaire. So you're going to have the thoughts, you're going to have the feelings, you're going to take the action that a millionaire would take. So given enough time, you're going to become a millionaire. So you, you can't be thinking and feeling and doing like someone who's going to fill a stadium full of people to hear your message and do that consistently and long enough, and not have the external reality eventually match up. And we're like, "Holy, there you are in a stadium sharing your message with thousands and thousands of people."
So we hear these sayings a lot in personal development, right? It's this idea of like, "Act as if," you know, or "Just feel a certain way now." And I found that it was really difficult to do that until I had a framework or context for it. But for me, this makes a lot of sense. And, you know, if you're joining me on YouTube and this makes a lot of sense to you, let me know in the comment box. And if you absolutely love this, then subscribe and hit the bell icon, because these conversations are the most important conversations we could be having if we want to change our lives and if we want to change our, our world together. So we need to start acting differently than our current environment would compel us to act. We want to start thinking and feeling and behaving in such a way that we're being the future version of our self right here, right now. And then our right here, right now must catch up with it. Right? Your bank account must catch up with it. The cells of your body must catch up with it. Right? The partner in your bed must catch up with it. All things must catch up with it.
And neuroscience and behavioral psychology support everything that we're talking about here. Some people think this is like a woo-woo conversation or a new age conversation. Identity shifting, right? That we live in multiple dimensions. Well, we do. Right here, right now, is the potential for you to be operating as $10 million you. You get to choose whether or not you're going to operate that way. But in order for you to have choice, what I found is, well, then you must have awareness around what that $10 million version of you would be thinking, feeling, and doing. And you must also be aware of how the non-$10 million version of you, the broke version of you, the financially insecure version of you, the chronic health condition version of you, is thinking, feeling, and doing. And now you've got a playbook. Now you've got a playbook, and you've got choice. And you can get into the moments of your life, and you can start being your future self now.
And the beautiful thing is, while there's some period of time that must pass, it's not as long as you probably think before your external circumstances materialize to reflect that future version of yourself and your goals and dreams. The beautiful thing is that you start enjoying your current experience so much more. And realize that what's happening is the old version of us that's ready to retire, that we're ready to shed, like, like a caterpillar comes out of the cocoon, or like a snake sheds its skin, it's ready to be shed, but it steals our present moment. Here I was, in the midst of the most beautiful Christmas Eve period of time I could have ever potentially experienced, and I was living in the failure of my marketing campaign. I brought the failure of my marketing campaign into the present moment. And that's what we do. We bring this feeling that we don't have enough into the present moment, and so that becomes our present moment: not having enough. We bring the worry about never overcoming our chronic health condition into the present moment, and so that becomes our present moment, stacked up over and over and over again. And so we never overcome our chronic health condition. We bring this idea of not good enough, based on some experience that we had over the course of the day or the week, into the present moment, beating ourselves up, or now criticizing and judging the other person and making them wrong in order to feel good about ourselves. And so not good enough becomes our present moment on an ongoing basis. And our external reality must reflect back who we're being.
And instead, in that moment, I realized, "I can be whoever I want to be right here, right now." And I chose to be the David who's accomplished all of his dreams, right there, right now. And so as a result of that, I relaxed. I was calm. I came into the present moment. I was focused on other people, and I had the most beautiful Christmas Eve I've ever had.
So the power of this teaching. I know that you want to create change in your life. And the change that you're looking for is a bigger house, more money in your bank account, more impact, you know, better relationships, better health. And that's great. But that is an effect of you learning how to actually be that person now. And the benefit of that is that you get to enjoy your life right now. You actually don't have to wait until you're $10 million Dave. Nothing changed for me in that moment in the living room, but everything changed for me in that moment in the living room.
And so now, this is the most important practice that I'm committed to do. I do it perfectly? No. Some days I totally suck at it. But I literally have in my journal, I have who I've been being, my limiting beliefs, my childhood traumas, my worries, my concerns, my negative habits of emotion, of thoughts, of action. It's my personal audit of, of what, again, in recovery, we call our character flaws or our character defects. That's not to be judgmental, self-judgmental. It's just that these are old parts of us that just no longer serve us. And I named it, and it's in my journal. I have King David, and I know what King David looks like. And I have my list of my goals and my dreams that King David has already accomplished. And so I'm, I'm present as much as possible to playing this game, no matter what shows up.
I'm on stage at one of my events. Maybe I say something, and all of a sudden the old David kicks in, and I start to do the self-judgment. How would King David be with this right now? King David allows himself to make mistakes because he knows that making mistakes or saying things that he might have wanted to say otherwise is the process towards master and helping even more people. So he's cool with it. Or, you know, I might be with my wife somewhere, and I notice that I'm getting caught up in my head around some work activity or some overwhelm or some negative thought pattern, and I'm like, "Okay, how would King David be with this right now?" King David would be focused on Carol, complimenting her, seeing if she needs anything, making sure that the baby has what he needs, and how I can help out so that, you know, my wife is not overburdened with taking care of our beautiful child. That's what King David does. King David's working out at the gym, and he pulls a muscle or twinges a muscle, right? And then old David steps in, "Oh my God, what if this is serious? What if this is going to affect my ability to work out moving forward?" Or I have an ache and a pain, or a flare-up of some old chronic condition that I was experiencing, and I start to worry about this never going away. Well, what would King David, how would King David react? Well, King David, it's already gone away for him. So King David would be like, "I know it's done. I'm not worried about this. I'm not going to bother with it. It's going to pass. I'm going to move on and focus on the beautiful things in my life."
And if you can develop that as a habit, this identity shift, very, very quickly, your external reality has to catch up. And again, the beauty is, is that in the short time, nothing's changed in your external experience, but you've changed. And so you're experiencing it differently. One of my private clients said, "Hey, I've been applying the identity shifting process, and it's been so powerful." He says, "In 90 days, I'm the happiest I've ever been, and nothing has changed in my life yet." Now, everything has changed, right? So really powerful tool. If you have questions, leave them in the comments. Again, if you love this episode, subscribe, share it with somebody else. We're all on this journey together to better ourselves. We're all on this journey together to create a more extraordinary life. If we can all create the visions and dreams we have for our own lives, collectively we've created a whole new planet and a whole new world.
And what's beautiful about this convergence now of neuroscience and psychology and spirituality and understanding how the brain works and how we create practically in our lives and how we create vibrationally in our lives, is that we have the opportunity to create change. And this channel is dedicated to giving you that information in ways that are frameworked, that are digestible, that you can implement just by consuming this content and being a part of this community. So I love you very much. I'm here to support you, and I'm excited to be on this journey with you. I will see you in the next episode.
Hey, it's David. Hop on over to David B. Click right here. There's also a link in the show notes and sign up for our newsletter. You'll get immediate access to my free Mind Hack ebook, as well as a couple of trainings to help you master the inner game. This is a great way to stay informed and be a part of our community and be notified of special announcements. Click below. Head on over to the website. Get subscribed. If you loved this video, make sure you check out this one or this one. And I will see you in the next video.
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