In this episode, we discuss how you can’t use the future to make you the person you are, it’s actually your past.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons on how to grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so you can have better careers, better relationships, and better personal finances.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about how in life you can’t connect the dots forward, you can only connect the dots backwards. I got this concept from Steve Job’s commencement speech at Stanford when he talked about his rise to greatness at Apple. Steve Jobs likes to credit a calligraphy class that he took at Reed College in Oregon. He wasn’t doing very well in school and eventually dropped out but he stayed around the campus for a while and dropped in on this calligraphy class and was amazed by how you can make letters look extra special.
Steve Jobs loved aesthetics and he lived in a house that was mostly unfurnished in his 20s because he couldn’t find the right furniture for his house. Steve Jobs even made sure that the inside of his electronics looked good when it wouldn’t really matter. He wanted things to perform well and look great at the same time. There was a point where it was either Dell or HP would have their logo facing the user when shut on a laptop but when you opened the laptop, it appeared upside down to everyone else looking at the laptop. Steve Jobs likes to accredit the success of Apple to this one class and there are many other things that happened in his life that contributed to the success of Apple. This is why he said you can’t connect the dots forward you can only connect them backwards. What is going to happen tomorrow and a year from now is going to be hugely influenced by what happened in the past.
I am a big fan of this quote because I feel it is so true. I am the man I am today because of what happened to me in the past and what I did at the same time. If you want to have a better life in the future, you have to do things today that will give you that better future. I’m lucky that my parents sent me to a good elementary, middle, and high school. I’m lucky I had the friends I had. I’m lucky that I went into the Marines and I’m lucky for all these other events that happened in the past.
Life can be crazy because one event can change your life forever. When I was in the Marines, I was stationed in Hawaii because I tore my ACL playing high school football, which caused me to join six months later than originally planned. If I would of went six months earlier, then I don’t know where I could have been stationed. In 2007, I went to Iraq because I volunteered to go because this one other people popped on a drug test and I was the first one to hear the news my workstation was right next to the office that makes the decision on who gets to go. If that Marine didn’t pop on a drug test, then I wouldn’t have met my ex-wife, who later helped me become a better writer and helped me move to Washington, DC. In DC I found out that I could be a financial planner and now I’m in Mexico learning Spanish and running my business from here.
I think about these things and I’m just shocked and impressed on how my life turned out. I know I’m here because of what happened in the past and I’m going to continue to do things that will give me a brighter future. So if you want to change your life, start doing new things that will give you good experiences. I recently listened to a podcast about memories and I found it fascinating that the same part of the brain that pulls memories is the same part that thinks about the future. So if you want to believe that you can have a better future, you need to have memories that show you can change as a person.
I know I can do anything because I’ve done a lot of things in the past that showed that I can change. I think my Marine Corps experience is a major factor in believing that I can change. Right now, I’m living my life as a digital nomad in Mexico. I am with my cousin right now before I head off to Colombia and I feel like I have the confidence to do this because I went to Boot Camp and this experience is a lot less stressful than that. If people don’t know me and ask if I’m afraid, I say no because I was in the Marines and I went to Iraq. If I can handle Iraq then I can handle this life as a digital nomad.
By making this change in my life, I’m changing my future dots. I came to Mexico to learn Spanish because I know if I can be fluent in Spanish then it can provide me with a lot more opportunities in the future. In financial planning, only two percent of financial planners are Latino and I know I have to skills to help out a lot of Latinos in the future. We’ll see in two years where I’ll be, but my future dots have definitely changed since I arrived here in Mexico. If I decided to stay in Washington, DC, I know my life would have been good but it’s not what I wanted my future to be.
Where ever you are in life, there is still time to change your future dots. It just requires you to make some investments today by learning concepts and strategies and gaining new experiences. In my development coaching business and with financial planning business, I tell people where they are in life right now, doesn’t define who they will be for the rest of their lives. You can make a change but it’s going to require action. If you want to change your future dots, what new things can you do today, tomorrow, or this week to get that new future?
That’s it for today’s episode, and to summarize it, you can’t connect the dots forward, only backwards. Make sure to check out the show notes to check out the Steve Jobs Commencement Speech by going to growwithjoe.me/episode170. It’s a really good speech and will give you the motivation to change your life. You also need to believe that you can change your future dots. As a kid, I was shy and overweight, and if I can change my life, you can change your life. Ask my sisters and they will tell you. The thing is is that I took action with my life and implemented different strategies to help me reach my goals. So take some time and reflect on your life and see how it made you the person you are today. You’re a product of your environment, and it will shape how you think and act, so make sure you’re doing things that will make you a good person, which will make the world a better place to live in.
Thanks for listening today! To get a free copy of my book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and just pay for shipping and handling.
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