Brian Johnson explains fMRI research showing that people who feel disconnected from their future self struggle with self-control. When researchers showed participants aged photos of themselves, retirement savings contributions jumped. How you see your future self shapes whether you can delay gratification today.
Foreign. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another micro class. This one's on you plus future you. It's inspired by the Marshmallow test by Walter Mischel. You plus future you. So we've been talking about the power of delaying gratification, cultivating self control. One of the key aspects of that is your connection between your current self and your future self. So Walter tells us fascinating story about research where you are put into an FMRI machine and your little brain is scanned while you do a few different things. First, the researcher looking at their little computer monitor here, right? There you go. Good enough. Looking at your brain in this fmri. Fmri. And he asks you, hey, please think about yourself. So you think about yourself and what happens is a part of your brain lights up that's related to what they call the self pattern. Very predictable, right? That region in your brain will light up with that type of pattern. Then they say, okay, great, thanks. Now, please think about a stranger. And you think about a stranger. And very similar part of your brain, but a different pattern emerges. You now display on this a stranger pattern, right? Self pattern, Stranger pattern. Makes sense. Your brain processes both differently. Then third part of the experiment, researcher says, okay, now please think about your future self. Think about your future self in 10 years. Well, okay, what do you think happens? What's fascinating is that some people, when they think of their future self, elicit a self pattern. But other people elicit a stranger pattern. It's as if thinking about their future self is thinking about someone else. It elicits the same type of pattern in the fmri. How fascinating is that? And what that means is if you think of your future self like a stranger, well, guess what? You're not going to be very driven to delay gratification. You just want what's good for you right now, because your current self and your future self are disconnected. There's no overlap here. Now, you might have more connection like this between your current and future self, or you might be really overlapped between your current and future self. The more connection you have to your future self, your current and future self, the more fusion there is here, the more likely you are to be able to cool your hot brain and delay gratification so that this future version of you, which you perceive to be very much like you, will benefit. It's a really powerful idea. So think about that. One way to go about developing this integration is to make the future version of you hotter in your mind, right? Because right now you just think of what's going on, right? Now is hot. One way to cool that is to make the future version of you hot. So I'm going to continue and share a little bit more here. They did research and one thing they did was they brought 20 year old kids into a lab and they said hey, how much money do you think you're going to put into or do you think you should put into your 401k and will you hypothetically put into your 401k, right? So then they have now and they have retirement 401k, right? And they took a picture of these wonderful looking 20 year olds and then they took this picture and they made it look like a 68 year old version of them, right? They kind of, you know that little trick they do, they fast forwarded it, they made it look like a 68 year old version of this person. Then they split them into two groups and they had one group that when they were making the decision about whether they were going to invest x percent or y percent into their 401k, right? And kind of setting the needle of oh I'll put in that much or maybe I'll put in a little less, right? They had one group that looked at a picture of their current self right here underneath their amount they're going to spend right now. That was one group. The other group they put in this picture of what they're going to look like at 68 years old below the retirement amount. And by making this connection between the current self and the future self in this condition, they put a ton more in into their 401k. That's awesome. Key here is we want to connect to our future self. When you're making a decision right now, one way to cool the hot impulse is to say is this going to benefit my future self? Am I treating my future self like a stranger or am I treating my future self like myself? And I want him to or her to be in a great position to flourish. Therefore, I'm going to cool this impulse to and I'm going to delay gratification. I'm going to do the right thing right now to benefit my future self. Bring it to focus and you will change your behavior. It's a big idea. I hope you enjoyed. Here's to you and the future you. Isn't it a bit odd we went from math to science to history but somehow missed the class on how to live for some wacky an Optimal Living 101 never made the schedule. Of course it's too late to go back and change that. And you're too busy to read full time to catch up yet. If you're like us, you're all about optimizing your life and actualizing your potential. So imagine this. Imagine having someone read the best books on optimal living and pulling out the big ideas that can truly change your life. You know those sections you asterisks and underline and mark all up? Then imagine that guy me connecting those ideas to other great books and helping you apply them to your life today. Well, that's what I do as something we call Philosopher's Notes where I break down each great book into a simple 6 page PDF, 20 minute MP3 and 10 minute Philosopher's Notes TV episode. Then imagine me taking the absolute best big ideas from those great books and sharing them with you in fun, inspiring, super practical optimal living 101 classes on stuff like purpose 101, confidence 101 business 101 meditation 101, that sort of thing. You've got a personal trainer? I'm kind of like your personal philosopher. Ancient Wisdom plus Modern Science plus Common Sense plus Virtue plus Mastery plus Fun. That's what our optimized membership program is all about. We'd love to have you join us. Check us out at BrianJohnson. Me join.
