Do you know your future self? Can you know your future self? This concept of becoming your future self is different for everyone - I believe it is different based on your age. The younger you are, the more you may think that you know your future self. The older you are, the more you may realize that who you are now, is not who you were when you were 23. The 23-year-old version of yourself might as well have been a stranger. This does not mean that you are an actual different person. You are still you, but, the future you is built from learning experiences over time. Philosophers have talked for many years about a thought experiment; this is sometimes referred to as the, Ship of Theseus". The great warrior Theseus returned from his exploits, his ship was stationed in the harbor as a memorial. And over the decades, parts of the ship began to rot and decay, and as this happened, planks were replaced by new planks. Until, eventually, every part of the ship of Theseus was built from something new. And philosophers, starting with Plato, have asked the question, "If every part of the ship of Theseus is new, is this still the ship of Theseus?" We, you and I, are all examples of the ship of Theseus. The cells in our body turn over all the time, they die, and new cells replace them. The people you were 10 years ago are not the people you are today. Like literally, the cells of your body, meaning your entire body, is physically not the same person. You have become, biologically, a different person. But, according to journalist Shankar Vendantam, he believes that something much more profound happens are the psychological level. You could argue that a ship is not just a collection of planks, and a body is not just a collection of cells. It is the organization of the planks that makes the ship. It is the organization of the cells that make the body. If you preserve the organization, even if you swap out the planks or the cells, you still have the ship and you still have the same body. But at a psychological level, each new layer that's put down is not identical to the one that came before it. So, what does this mean? It means that, on an ongoing basis, you are constantly becoming a new person. Think about this. If you are 23 years old, you will be a different person than when you are 43 years old. I am 43 years old, and when I think back to my 23-year-old self, that person was not a podcast host. That person was not a business owner. If we are not careful, we will have the impression that the 23yr Andy, the 43yr old Any, and the 83-year-old Andy who will be living on a beach and traveling the world, are the very same person. So, if we are not the same person, as we age, how can we age and become the person we want to be? I believe there are 2 mindsets. #1 The Growth Mindset Someone with a growth mindset views intelligence, abilities, and talents as learnable and capable of improvement through effort. #2 Fixed Mindset Someone with a fixed mindset views those same traits as inherently stable and unchangeable over time. This concept of growth and fixed mindsets was coined by psychologist Carol Dweck in her 2006 book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. According to Dweck, challenging situations can be catastrophic for those with fixed mindsets because of the implication that if they don’t already have the skills or intelligence to complete a task, there’s no chance of improvement. I have seen this play out in our industry, let me give you an example: While working for Baseline Control Systems for the past 15yrs, the #1 question I always received from the field (distributors & contractors) was to teach them how it worked, prior to installing the system. Or, will you please come to the site and help me program it. Or, distributor account managers would get a request from their customers (contractors) to visit the site and help them. Account Managers with a FIXED mindset, would call me in adv
Published on 2 years, 2 months ago
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