Past -> Present -> Future.

We think this is how our experience of time works, in a line.

We think our present is determined by our past, and our future by our present.

That’s not true of course.

We re-write our past according to our present. We select our memories, interpret them, re-interpret them according to who we want to be at the present moment. We constantly re-make our past selves in our current image.

That means we can do the same with the future.

We can let our future selves – the selves we want to become determine who we are in the present. We can let our future selves select what we choose to do today. And what we choose not to do. We can re-make ourselves today in the image of who we want to become.

That’s how we can grow, intentionally, into the kind of person we want to be in 10, 20, 30 years.

And if we can do that for ourselves, we can do it for our businesses.

And that’s how we can at least partially grow our world, intentionally, into the kind of world we want our children to inherit in 20, 30, 100, 500 years.

All we have to do is start with the future we really want. Then use that to drive what we do today,

Discipline makes Daring possible.

HT Benjamin Hardy for this insight.