The founder of my favorite brand in the whole wide world, Patagonia (the outdoor active wear company) changed his whole business around when he asked himself one question: What if we’re still around 100 years from now? How would we have to change? After that, a revolution began. The company made it their mission to “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use our business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.” They changed their address, their suppliers and their marketing.
My Question
While this was going on at Patagonia, I had also been asking myself this transformative question during my daily meditations. Even today, each day I ask myself “what would the future successful me be saying to the today me who is trying to grow her business and is scared of all the change that’s happening?”
My Answer
First let me clarify who the future successful me is. She’s fearless because she has literally seen and done it all. She’s rich in money, friendships, love and health. She is not only a thought leader in her subject matter but an inspiration in her community. She’s a successful parent and a still deeply in love wife. She’s brought about enormous change in her business and in her family’s lifestyle through her continuing successes. Let me also give you a clue (see the picture above) that she’s still pretty damn good to look at.
What does the future me say to me every day? “Hold on Chala. Wait it out. Don’t give up and don’t be afraid of the future. Keep doing the things that you’re doing because you really are 3 feet from the kind of success that you’re dreaming about. Forget the fear and know that it works out really well for us.”
The Science
Now, I knew this as an exercise in NLP (Neurolinguistic programming) which I studied years ago but until I became familiar with Dr.Joe Dispenza’s work I never knew why talking to your future self was a good thing to do.
In an incredible study that Dr.Joe mentions in his book “Breaking the Habit Of Being Yourself” in July 2000, an Israeli doctor conducted research with almost 4000 hospitals and divided patients into 2 groups. One group would have people praying for them to get well, the other wouldn’t. All the patients had sepsis (an infection). He looked at 3 things to determine if the prayer worked: 1. how long the fever lasted, 2. length of hospital stay and 3. how many died as a result of infection.
Predictably, the prayed-for benefited from an earlier decrease in fever, shorter hospitalization time and the death rate was better but not statistically significant versus the unfortunate not-prayed-for group.
Here’s the kicker: the people praying only discovered later that the name of the patient lists they were praying for were from patients who were in the hospital from 1990 to 1996! Four to ten years before the experiment was done. In other words, praying (placing mind energy) on perfect strangers who lived in the past HELPED heal them. How crazy is that!
The Future You
If you were to pray (or have a focused intention during meditation like I do each day) on your own past or future for a better life, could you affect it? According to Dr.Joe, quantum law in physics says that all potential exists simultaneously. It’s mind-blowing but I’ve been practicing this very thing and it’s not only made me feel better but it’s actually manifesting great things in my business.
So, if you can open your mind and your heart and talk to the future you, what would you say to yourself to grow your small business like I am?
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