0208: Personality Isn't Permanent: Break Free From Self-Limiting Beliefs and Rewrite Your Story with Best Selling Author, Trainer, & TEDx Speaker Dr. Benjamin Hardy

This is Dr. Benjamin Hardy and you are listening to EA Interviews.

EA Interviews Episode 208, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the Imperfect Action Round. Seven days a week, join Mario Ficcini for today's expert authority effect interview. Do you think that personality is permanent? Have you ever thought one thing and wanted to dive deeper and taken the Myers Briggs test and thought maybe this doesn't make a ton of sense. Did you know that it can actually be destructive? I am beyond excited to have Dr. Benjamin Hardy here. You've seen him on Forbes, you've seen him on NBC, you've seen him on Fortune and all over the place. He's a best selling author, TEDx speaker and CEO. And I'm beyond excited to bring him up. Right after we thank our sponsor. Every business needs a book, including yours. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead in profit generating a business book in eight weeks. Once again, that's free businessbook publishingcourse.com Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Benjamin Hardy. Ben, how are you feeling today?

Doing great. Happy to be with you.

I'm excited to have you here. I know you're just a wealth of knowledge and every time I've heard you, you have so much to share. And I just wanted to ask you, why isn't personality permanent?

Because you're not the same person you were five years ago and you're not going to be the same person in five years from now. Personality changes over time, that's just normal. Changes immensely during your 20s, 30s, but it changes throughout the rest of your life as well. And so yeah, but it is a cultural fad, I guess you could say, to try to find your true self. But that really is just a fixed mindset.

Where do you think that has developed from to create that fixed mindset when it's an ever changing thing?

I mean, people, you know, we develop filters, we see the world certain ways and so it's, it's just easier to assume that things don't change, you know, like I have five kids and our oldest kid who we adopted, we adopted our oldest three. But it's easy for me to just assume that he's the same kid he was five years ago because sometimes he still displays the same behavior. But if I'm actually mindful and I actually look at the situation, it's obvious that he's changed a lot. But I think we just were mentally lazy. You know, it's, it's part of our brain's ability to create shortcuts. And so we fail to notice change when it happens. And also we don't spend much of time imagining a different future. A lot of research has gone into this. We kind of assume that who we are today is the person we're going to always be, even if we already know that we're a very different person than we were in the past. So it's just kind of. It's a lack of imagination as we grow older.

That's interesting you say that because there's a lot of people like yourself who have achieved a lot. And I'm sure you had to envision it and go after it and make it happen. But how would you describe someone who's achieved a lot, but then maybe plateaus 10 or 15 years later versus someone who was never on the track to begin with?

Well, the person who plateaus probably got caught up in their former Persona or their former identity or their former status. You know, they've. They attached too much meaning to a former aspect of themselves and they've lost a future that stretches them forward. And so I think that, that that's very common, happens all the time, especially for people who are very successful.

So it doesn't matter if you had success or not. The goal is to keep it going for the rest of your life.

Well, in psychology there's a concept called perspection. And basically what the idea means is that the thing that makes human beings different from, let's just say plants and animals is that we have the ability to imagine an infinite number of future scenarios. You know, like I can imagine a million different futures and I can then choose to commit to one of those futures. And human beings are driven and are drawn towards their view of the future. And so if a person, let's just say, retires or they, they stop doing what they're doing and they no longer have a future that's pulling them forward, then their presence going to really lack meaning. They're not going to be able to do much. And so we all actually. Yeah. So imagining futures is essential to being human. But then having a future that gives you meaning and committing to that future is what gives your life purpose. And so if you don't have that, no matter how successful or bad your past has been, you need a future that's driving your present, otherwise you're not going to be happy.

How often would you advise someone imagines that future? Is this something they should be doing yearly? Every three years, five years, every decade?

Are you talking about like how often do they do the imagination process or how far out?

How far out?

Oh, I think that there's. Again, we all have very different futures at different levels. So I mean, I don't think that there's one. You know, you can imagine your future next week in addition to next year and in 20 years from now. I don't think that, I mean, I like three year time frames. Three, three years is good. But really what matters is mostly the timeframe has to be relevant to whatever future you're personally trying to create right now. So if you have a massive goal, it may actually be 20 years out, but you still probably want to chunk that down to like two to three years. And so if you can find a relevant and a meaningful time to build that future around, that's always better. So for example, literally today is my eight year anniversary with my wife.

Congratulations.

Yeah, thank you. One of the things we did though was we created a time capsule that we're going to open on our 10th anniversary. So like, I know in two years from now I'm going to open a time capsule. And in that time capsule I created predictions about where I thought I was going to be. So that's a timeline. That's organic. You know, I could, I could create my future self two years from now and I could work to build that. So I think it's good to have timelines that are relevant and meaningful to something that's in your life.

What else is something you're doing that helps this process? So you're saying it sounds like the first step is have a vision and have the imagination going and have it out in the future. What else would you say aids this for someone that's listening and goes, you know, I want to do this and I want my 10 years from now. Here's where I want to be. Obviously chunk it down and plan it out. But what would you say is another step that they could follow?

There's a few key steps. One is you really want to recognize and appreciate that your future self is a very different person than who you are today. Don't assume that they're the same person because that's a false assumption. But it's also, it would limit your creativity and imagination. So first off, realize that they're going to be a very different person than you are today. And then take time regularly. I would say journal every day, just five to 10 minutes about who your future self is and about what you should do today to take a meaningful step in that direction. I would also recommend you tell people in your life about who you want to be in the future. Because if you're actually going to eventually become that person, then they're gonna realize that that's where you're going anyway. So you might as well just be honest about it now so that they can start supporting you and becoming that. And maybe you can weed out some of the relationships that would try to stop you from becoming who you want to be.

One other key component is that you need to turn your future self, which is kind of an idea, it's an identity. It's a future identity. So you need to turn your future self into a measurable outcome. And so what I mean by that is you need one goal. One goal. Not 50. You need one goal and you need to turn your future self into an outcome. So I'll give a few examples from my life. When I was an undergrad, my goal was to get into a high tier PhD program. That one goal allowed me to actually live my life on purpose during those years towards a future. When I got into my PhD program, my goal became to be a, you know, to get a six figure book contract with one of the big five. And so you need a specific outcome. It could be run a marathon, it could be have your business, it could be get married, whatever it is. You need an outcome that allows you to generate a daily process for becoming that future self. So once you've defined your future self, you need a single measurable goal that you can accomplish so that your days can be spent actually working towards something specific.

So I know there's someone listening that's probably thinking, this sounds a little bit scary. What if I lose everything I already have that I worked hard for? But I also see the flip side of this going. You can literally become anything and do anything you want.

Yeah, I don't think you're going to lose everything that you've got.

I don't think you have to lose everything. You've got to pursue what you want. There's definitely things you will have to let go. Okay. I think the more focused you get on a, the bigger your future becomes. You definitely have to eliminate stuff that you've accepted into your life. You have to eliminate various relationships. You've got to focus. You know, there's a concept called the 8020 principle, which is a very common principle. But the more, the bigger your future gets, the farther it out it is, the more focused you have to be, obviously on the few things that really matter. And you've got to stop doing a lot of the things that are clearly distracting you. And so, yeah, you do have to let go of some of the things that maybe your former self used to enjoy. But your future self is a different person. And you can evolve and grow and you should, you know, just because you were one way doesn't mean you have to always be that person.

So let's give the perspective of. Let's talk about that book deal. You, before you had it, you were envisioning it and doing these things. What happened once you had it?

Yeah, so once I got the book deal, then like you're in the situation of what used to be your future self. Now it's your new normal. Now it's just your normal reality. You know, now you've got. Now it's. Now it becomes honestly mundane. What used to be your dream becomes mundane. And so that's why you then need a new future self. You know, you need. But you can also still enjoy it. You know, I mean, I then wrote the books. I'm able to provide for my family doing what I want. Yeah. So I'm proud that my former self was living his life with intention because can look on my past and be really grateful that my former self had a goal and then actually created it. And now my current reality is enormously better than my former self's reality. But yeah, you can't just stop there, you know, you always have to be stretching, you know. And so, yeah, now I have new goals. Now it's writing better books or being a better dad. And you're always kind of simplifying your current situation and hopefully making it better.

Let me expand on this and take it from a personal aspect to a community state and worldwide perspective. Obviously there's many benefits of becoming a better person and doing all of these things. You can help more people. But let's foreshadow into the future 10 or 20 years. What percentage of people do you think it would take to make a global impact of everyone's at this new level and making a difference in the world?

So what's the actual question? Like what. What would it take for a large portion of the population to do this? Or what do you. What's the question? Oh, geez.

Well, the great part is, is that it's not like you have to make a million dollars. Like not everyone needs to grow into that future self. I think just living more intentionally in general allows us to avoid a lot of the distraction, a lot of the addiction, and a lot. I mean, my thought is just live your life on purpose, you know. So.

Yeah, I don't know how to answer your question, to be fully honest with you. Okay.

It's okay. And I wasn't asking to. I was just nothing other than curious.

And we might be able to reorient the question. I'm definitely interested on societal levels. Maybe just a different angle on the question would be helpful. Okay. Yeah.

Because everything you're sharing, I've had goals, and before I had my books, it was like, I failed English seven times. So my first book alone was like, you want to talk about an identity shift? That was more emotional for me than many other things. And then I've done other ones and other stuff. But when you get on that other side, it's just like, you see it, and it's like, wow, if everyone could see their own potential and do this. And I've always just envisioned, like, everyone just rising up, even 5 or 10% more. And it's like, oh, my gosh, if you can, you know, I pray constantly, you know, lord, take everything off my plate so I can focus on everyone else. And it's like, if people could just get out of their own problems, what couldn't we do? And it's just. It's an inspiring thought for me because we really can help so many people. But, yeah, there's all kinds of stuff trying to put it, put us down. I mean, we can go real deep on that one. I know where you're at, and.

Well, I think a thought that comes to my mind as you're sharing this is the importance of leadership and vision. Because one thing that I've realized is that if you have a vision, it could be a personal vision or a societal vision. You need to share where you want to go in general, because then people start to support you. But if you also just have a broader vision, it could be to start a company. It could be to create a social movement. You become very surprised at how quickly people come to support the movement. People really want to be a part of a vision. And so, yeah, I think it's essential that we actually imagine and create the future. Because as Abraham Lincoln said, the best way to imagine the future or the best way to predict the future is to create it. Right. And so that's what we do with our own lives. But we can also do that on a societal level. You just have to actually come up with and imagine that future and then start telling people about it, and you start to get a lot of people to support it on either a personal level or a societal level.

That's awesome. And that's very Inspiring. Because I remember when I started this show, not even that long ago.

The mission of the show is to exponentially elevate the identity of humanity.

So cool. That is so good.

Well, thank you.

Identity. Identity comes from your view of the future, and identity is the thing that drives your behavior. So it's a perfect vision.

It was a little freaky, freaking me out before episode one, and I was like, I don't know what I'm gonna do, but God gave me the vision and I'm gonna go for it. And it's, it's a, it's a fun thing to do. And I know you've done it time and time again, but it's just, you know, you're one of the few people I felt like I could actually ask this to and get some semblance of a serious answer because I think it's a stretch for me, myself included, and I think most people, because again, if you're wrapped up in your own stuff on a day to day basis, you don't care what's going on in the world. You don't even care what's going around the block because you don't have time to think about it.

Yeah, I mean, I have two thoughts from what you're saying. One is.

Look at how far you've come because of the vision you have. I mean, I guarantee your show and everything you do is exponentially better than what you initially imagined it was going to be. You know, look, so look at how far your vision has brought you. But I also love the second thought, which is that you get your life in such order that you no longer have to think about your own needs, but you can then go out and solve other problems. And I think that's a killer agenda. You know, like our brains can only really pay attention to so many things at once. And if all of your attention is soaked up on, you know, essentially paying the bills or meeting our needs, then your brain isn't freed up to come up with different futures and different agendas. And so I think it's all of our responsibility in many ways to take care of our own needs, to put our lives in an order where we're mentally and emotionally free enough to actually do something useful. So I love what you're doing.

Well, I appreciate that very much. Thank you. And I just got to ask, how many things can the human brain handle at once? Because I think I was 3 over the limit this past week.

If you want to be in a flow state, probably one. You know, so every human behavior is Outcome generating. So, like, if I want to go get a drink, it's to create an outcome. You know, it's to get my drink. If I want to go eat food, it's to create an outcome, it's to eat and fill myself up. Every human behavior is to produce an outcome. And usually if you're focused on just creating one outcome at a time, so in this case us having a great conversation, you will be in a flow state far more often. And so, yeah, I mean, you can handle a few things at once. I can go walking while listening to an audiobook, but I'm still probably mostly just trying to create one outcome there. So I just think that the fewer outcomes you're trying to create at one time, the more flow you'll have and the more those outcomes will actually be powerful and meaningful and you'll actually be able to get big stuff done. You know, like, you can knock out a lot of things quickly if you're just trying to accomplish one major thing at a time, you know, so on a daily basis, it's like, what's the one major thing you're trying to do today that if you did it, it would make the biggest difference for your future? Yeah, you could do 50 mediocre things, but if you did one really cool thing, what's the biggest thing that could happen? What about this week? What's the one thing that, you know, if it happened, your whole future would be different. And then I. So I just think singular focus on. On the most important outcome allows you to have a flow state a lot more often, and it allows you to create a lot bigger results than. I think.

I'll end this thought with a quote, and it's from Robert Brault, and he said, we're kept from our goal not by obstacles, but by clear paths to lesser goals. And I think we often take clear paths to lesser goals because we're just not willing to commit to one thing.

Wow, that's powerful.

Yeah, having that singularity of focus is definitely. It's more enjoyable, too. It's not fun when there's 98 things going on and you're just trying to get one. One thing done.

Yeah, you don't get as much progress, and therefore you don't get as much confidence. You know, it's technically easy that where it comes from. What was that?

Is that where it comes from? So it's the lack. You have less fun doing it, so the confidence is lower and you, because of. You're not making as much progress.

Well, making progress builds confidence and so if you've watched yourself, let's just say do something that took a while, you know, I'll give myself as an example. It could be writing a book. It could be, you know, finishing a PhD. It could be doing 100 episodes of a podcast. If you watch yourself do something long enough, then you'll, then you'll actually generate bigger futures. But if you, if you've never actually done something more than the first few steps, then the futures you generate will be very small again. It's your view of your own future that determines who you are in the present. And so by actually.

Committing to bigger things, you can actually conjure up much further out futures which allow you a much better identity in the present.

That's exciting. And I can relate to that with the books. Because you're not going to publish the book if you never get chapter one done.

Exactly.

And when you're talking about doing that single thing for the day, some days it was just, I want to do another chapter. But how much more leverage is on that?

Now is a very productive day if you actually did that chapter.

Yeah, thought. And that's, that's how I thought about it. And you know, one. One. One day, one the next day, and eventually it all goes, it goes, it.

Goes perfectly with the quote from Bill Gates where he said, you, you overestimate what you can do in one day, but you underestimate what you can do in a year. It's like if you just do one thing, the right thing, a day, over a year, you'll be shocked at how far you are. But I think, you know, people, people just try to squeeze too many mediocre things in at once.

This is awesome. I'm so glad you're sharing this. I want to. You obviously know what you're talking about, and I want to ask you about your clients and the people you've helped. What's the biggest transformation they've had through one of your trainings or.

Trainings? Talks, Something you were able to help them with. Who. What's one of the biggest transformations you've seen them have?

I don't know.

A lot of. I've definitely been a part of a lot of cool, cool opportunities. I try not to honestly overly pay attention to that, to be fully honest with you. But there's. We get emails every single day. You know, people who've, you know, quit addictions, lost hundreds of pounds, cured cancer. I mean, you know, started businesses that sold for millions and millions of dollars. I mean, it's, it's interesting, but I Just, I actually shield myself from most of that, to be honest with you. I don't even answer my email as much anymore. But it's. It is good for me to just hear simple stories, to be fully honest with you. Like, a friend of mine who I've known for 10 years, he read Personality Isn't Permanent, and he said it led to a conversation with his parents, which allowed him to let go of something that he's been holding on to for decades in which he thought he was going to have to carry for his whole life. And now he's in a healed space with his parents. And so I'm more interested in those simple, like, important but simple transformations than maybe, you know, the semi. You know, the seemingly crazy. You know, I mean, I think that those little things are actually really crucial. And I'm excited to know that my friend no longer has to carry this unnecessary emotional load for the next 40 years of his life because he actually began to see it differently and had a conversation with his parents which allowed him to just let it go.

Yeah, that's a huge weight off their shoulders.

Totally.

And that's the fun thing about transformations, because I can think of my clients and it's the same thing. It's like, yeah, it's cool if someone went from a million a year to 10 million, but it's like when you can restore a relationship that's priceless.

Totally.

So I want to do one more thing with you before we go to the Imperfect Action round, and it's called the Wheel of Whatever. We spin it and it ends up on a question.

And it always ends up in the right spot. So your question is.

Who is an entrepreneur or CEO that you would love to learn from? Personally?

Yeah, I would say probably for a long time it was Dan Sullivan, and now he and I are co authoring books together. So I'm not really sure who it is right now. Really enjoy learning from Dan. Still continue to enjoy learning from Dan. There's no one off the top of my head that I can think of at the moment.

What if I took off the CEO or entrepreneur, and it could be anyone in the world, then.

Yeah.

I'm interested in learning from.

People who are doing really cool humanitarian work, people who are doing really cool missionary work. I think there's just a lot of good causes going on in the world. So I think there's a lot of great leaders out there who I'm constantly striving. There's literally no one who's coming immediately.

To mind, but those are the organizations and charities.

Yeah, humanitarian.

Organizations. The ones that are interesting to me at the moment.

Okay, excellent. We are going to thank our sponsor and come back for the imperfect action round. You've heard me say every business needs a book, including yours. And it's true. And that's why you should Visit free businessbook publishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. But you know what, don't take my word for it. Take it from a few of my authors like Laurie.

I went from having an idea and a possibility to actually getting my book published.

Or Catherine, thank you for making my.

Mom number one best selling author.

Or Mary Alice, what he got done.

For me in three days regarding my book launch.

Unmanageable.

John Cody. I've worked with Mario over the phone and online and he's been very helpful in getting me where I needed to.

Go with promoting my books. Rocio, there's no way in the world I would have been able to do this with somebody else again. I've attempted it in the past. It didn't serve me. As a matter of fact, I ended up more frustrated than anything. So this has been a very seamless process. Adele, if you're looking for an amazing business coach, I highly recommend Mario Ficcini or Bill Benner. I can't make a higher recommendation for than to work with Mario Ficini. He has been great for me and right now I won't work with anybody else except for Mario.

Hey, their words, not mine. Visit freebusinessbook publishingcourse.com to get started now. And I look forward to hearing your transformation as the next video success story. Once again, that's freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com and we are back with the imperfect action round. Ben, are you ready to take imperfect action?

Yes, sir.

First question I have, and these are quick 60 second answers. First one is what is the fastest path to the profits?

Are you talking about like fastest path to money?

Yes.

I would say team with people who are already doing really cool things.

Okay. Number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way for them to fix it?

Not being a part of a community that can help them get past their own obstacles. I think that people need to be a part of small communities that they're accountable to on a regular basis and that's usually a great way to quickly get past whatever issue they're dealing with.

Excellent.

Number three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

Community Having a community that they feel that they don't want to leave and so they, they stay with you. Because you've not only given them an important thing, but you've given them a community to be part of that they feel accountable to.

And would you say to expand on that a little bit, would you say there's that sense of belonging or it's just the confidence in them.

That they're growing and they can stay accountable to someone?

Both. You know, they need the confidence that they're growing and that their future is getting better, but they also need.

A sense of belonging. They need it. Yeah. They need something that they feel they're a part of which gives their like weekly or monthly life a lot of meaning.

Excellent. What are some books that you'd recommend that have made a big difference in your life?

I would say the 8020 principle is a book I recently read that's very good.

Body Keeps the Score is a great book about trauma.

I don't know, I mean there's lots of different types of books. There's spiritual books, there's business books.

But yeah, you can recommend spiritual ones. That's cool.

Yeah, I'll just leave with those. I mean I think that those are some really cool. Those are some great books. 8020 and body keeps the Score are really good books.

Okay.

Well where would you like people to learn more?

Just go to benjaminhardy.com you can get free access to a 30 day future self program and yeah, just that's all you got to do is opt in and you get a free access to a full full on program that's I've charged hundreds of dollars for but we've now made it free.

Very kind of you.

I'll make sure there's a link on the eainterviews.com show notes page for your episode.

Cool man. Thank you.

All right, well it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for your time and I've got a lot out of this myself and I know Expert Authority World has also.

Sorry, my Internet's been. Not the best, but grateful to be with you anyways.

Well, I know it's going to be a great episode. It's already been a great episode, but no worries there. And Expert Authority World, we have another great episode here today. I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day and God bless. You're already the expert. But have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate and qualify leads while increasing profit for you 247 and if so, how well are you promoting it? With the Expert Authority Effect publishing method, it's easier and faster than ever. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com to get started. Now. Once again, that's free. Businessbook publishingcourse.com hey, thanks for listening to today's episode. I hope you got a lot out of it. I know I sure did. If you haven't done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show and also be sure to check out eainterviews.com for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you tomorrow.