Fire Your Old Self Before They Wreck Your Future

What if the person running your company today is the version of you least qualified to lead it?

Most business owners don’t realize it. Their past self is still sitting in the CEO chair: The cautious one. The overworked one. The one playing small. And it’s quietly strangling their future.

In this episode, Dr. Dave reveals:

• The silent sabotage that keeps business owners stuck in survival mode.
• The mindset shift that frees you to start making decisions as the leader you’re becoming.
• The hidden advantage of future-ready companies — and why top talent is drawn to them.

If you’re tired of surviving quarter to quarter and you’re ready to build the kind of business your future self would be proud of, hit play now.

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Transcript

Philip is standing in a high school parking lot in Eugene, Oregon. It's 1964 he's 26 years old, wearing a cheap gray suit that hangs loose on his skinny frame. The Oregon wind cuts through him as he fumbles with the trunk of his green Plymouth Valiant. His palms are sweaty. His heart is racing. Inside the trunk are boxes of Japanese running shoes. Almost no one in America has ever seen the Onitsuka Tigers. He bought them with borrowed money. Flew halfway around the world to get them, and now they sit in cardboard boxes waiting to prove him right or make him a fool. On the track a few yards away, he can hear the sharp clatter of spikes against the surface, the short grunts of sprinters straining against stop watches his old coach, Bill Bowerman, is standing there with his clipboard, the man Philip both admires and fears disappointing. This is the moment he reaches for a pair of size nines. His hands are still trembling. Here's what his past self is screaming. This is insane. You're not a businessman, you're just a track guy with a half baked idea. Move a few pairs. Don't embarrass yourself. Maybe scrape together rent this month. But another voice is whispering quieter his future self. What if this isn't about shoes at all? What if you could build something that changes how athletes see themselves. What if you could inspire people to push beyond what they think is possible? Same parking lot, same man, two completely different leaders, past self. Philip sees problems. Foreign shoes. No one will buy debts. He may never repay, humiliation waiting on the track. Future self, Philip sees possibility, a brand, a movement, a global empire. That day he sold a handful of pairs out of the trunk of that car. But the real story isn't how many boxes left the lot. The real story is that his future self won the boardroom battle in his mind, and from that decision forward, history tilted, because Philip wasn't just any nervous kid hocking shoes in a parking lot. That was Phil Knight, and he would eventually found Nike, the swoosh just do it. Michael Jordan soaring through the air, and today, a company generating more than 50 billion in annual revenue. And here's the truth, you face that same parking lot moment every single day. The only question is, which self is running your business, the one chained to the past or the one building the future? That's the fight we're stepping into today, past self versus future self, and why most people are still letting the wrong one sit in the CEO chair. Let's get started. Welcome to flow driven. The number one problem in business today is flow deficit disorder. You see the symptoms everywhere, burned out, teams, high turnover, employees, sleepwalking through their work and profits that never rise to match the effort. Proof the old way of work isn't working at all. For a century, business ran on industrial age rules, efficiency, consistency, compliance. Then came the information age, where knowledge processes and titles defined value, but those rules no longer apply, because we've entered the transformation age, an era of relentless change fueled by AI. And if you're still using the old playbook, you're experiencing a very bumpy ride. The Cure, of course, is flow. Flow is the state where high performance and deep enjoyment collide, where human flourishing meets business excellence, and it's the only way to keep up in the transformation age. Your host and coach is Dr Dave Maloley, former Army officer, retired dentist and now a flow obsessed performance coach. And let's be clear, if you're an entrepreneur who's okay wasting your team's potential, this show isn't for you. But if you're committed to unleashing genius and building a business that wins in the transformation age, you're in the right place. Each week, Dr Dave shares strategies, stories and science to help you beat flow, Deficit Disorder, grow profits and reclaim your time freedom. Want to go deeper. Go to flow. Code, dot news and subscribe to flow code, your weekly prescription for flow deficit disorder, one sharp idea, one strategy and one GPT prompts to help you build a high profit business that makes people better. All at no charge. The link is also in the episode description. Here's why most of you are still letting your past self run the company, your brain doesn't even recognize the future self as you. And that's not just me talking. That's Hal Hirschfield. He's a professor of marketing, behavioral, decision making and psychology at UCLA Anderson School of Management. He ran a study where he put people into fMRI scanners and asked them to think about themselves right now, themselves in the future, and even celebrities like Matt Damon and Natalie Portman. And here's what he found, the brain lit up almost exactly the same way when people thought about their future self as when they thought about a complete stranger. Now let that sink in to your biology. Your future self might as well be a random person in line in front of you at Starbucks, which means every time you face a decision, do I hire or hold back? Do I expand or play it safe? Do I invest or retreat? Your brain tilts toward protecting the past self you know, not the future self that you need, and that's why so many leaders stay stuck. They let their past self, the grinded out survivor, the one addicted to control and scarcity. Sit in the CEO chair. That's the ghost CEO running most businesses right now, safe, familiar. It's like letting your scared freshman self make high stakes business decisions. They don't belong in that chair anymore, and if you let them stay, they'll quietly strangle your future. So here's the enemy in plain English, past self leadership, fear dressed up as strategy, safety, pretending to be wisdom. And the longer you cling to it, the more your business bleeds, energy, genius and profit. The alternative, of course, is a future self leadership. It starts by asking one question, what would the version of me who has already built this company do right now? Identity first, then strategy. Instead of grinding harder, you design for flow conditions where genius compounds, instead of collapsing under all that pressure, because the future self does not play to lose. The future self plays to create. So let me ask you this, who is running your company today, the version of you that's trying to survive another quarter, or the version of you who's already built it, scaled it and successfully exited? All right, my friend, let's get practical. If you want your future self running the company, you've got to do something uncomfortable. First. You've got to fire your past self. Picture it. Your past self is sitting in the CEO chair, shoulders heavy, eyes, tired, still carrying every scar from those early days, that version of you survived the long nights, maxed out, the credit cards, signed, the risky checks made, calls no one else wanted to make. They kept the lights on. They got you here, but now they're exhausted. They don't innovate, they don't really delegate. They're still checking email at midnight, still putting out every fire, still saying yes to projects that don't move the needle. They're stuck playing defense. The habits that built your business are the very habits that are now holding you back. Dr Ben Hardy is an organizational psychologist who's written one of the very best books on this topic, called be your future self. Now, he puts it bluntly, you can't become your future self until you stop being your past self. Think about that you cannot step into the leader you need to be if you're still dragging around the identity of the leader that you used to be. It's like running today's business on yesterday's operating system. It crashes under the weight of what you're asking it to do. You. And firing your past self does not mean dishonoring them. Actually, quite the opposite. It means walking them out of the corner office with gratitude, shaking their hand, handing them the gold watch for years of service, saying you did your job. You got me here, but you cannot take me there. That's the first shift identity death, letting go of the survivor CEO, so you can finally step into the Creator CEO. Because every day you let your past self call these shots. You trade possibility for predictability, and you watch your business quietly drift into irrelevance, as I'm sure you anticipated, firing your past self is not enough. You've got to recruit and hire the future self CEO. And here's the dramatic difference between the two. Your past self makes decisions to avoid mistakes. Your future self makes bold decisions to create significant outcomes. Your past self will ask those questions like, How do I get through the quarter? But your future self will ask big questions like, How do I build something that lasts for decades? So how do you actually get acquainted with this future self? Well, you start treating them like they're real. One way is to write a letter to your future self and then write a letter back as them. That simple act forces you to see from their perspective. Another way, open a journal and answer one question every morning, what would I do today if I were already the leader who built, scaled and exited a company. Do this consistently, and your future self stops feeling like A far off dream. They start feeling like someone sitting across the table from you. Firing your past self and hiring your future self sets the stage. But how does that future self actually run the company? And it's not by repeating the old playbook louder. The future self CEO is a flow orchestrator. They know that the real job isn't micromanaging tasks or chasing quarterly goals. The real job is building a culture where flow, and especially group flow, becomes the operating system. That means designing for self managing teams, people who don't need you looking over their shoulder, people who own their zone. They solve problems and create momentum without waiting for permission, because in disruptive times, the businesses that win will be the ones optimized for agility, anti fragility and respectability. Agility is proactive, moving first, anticipating shifts, making plays before market forces your hand. Anti fragility goes further. It means your business doesn't just survive stress. It grows stronger because of it and respectability. Well, that's all about trust, refer, ability and becoming a talent magnet, being the company people want to work for and work with, and flow fuels all of that. When you lead as a flow orchestrator, you create conditions where genius compounds instead of collapsing, where pressure doesn't burn people out, it brings out their best, where your team stops depending on you for every answer, because you are creating breakthroughs together. So that's the third shift. Stop running your business like a task master. Start running it like a flow orchestrator who builds self managing teams. I believe in this AI driven transformation age. Flow isn't just your edge. It's the only way forward. Here's the bottom line, your past self isn't just slowing you down. They're stealing your future. So give them the gold watch. Thank them for their service. Walk them out to the parking lot, then hand the CEO chair to your future self, the one who's already built it, scaled it and exited. So here's my coaching challenge for you. Before your head hits the pillow tonight, write down one decision you've been avoiding and make it as your future self, not the cautious survivor that you used to be, but the creator that you're becoming. Do that once, and you'll feel the difference. Do it daily, and you'll never go back safe or legendary. That's the choice. Which one are you going to live with? Thank you for being a part of flow driven the movement to build high profit businesses that make people better. If this episode. Brought you value. Share it. It's an act of generosity helping other ambitious entrepreneurs navigate AI disruption and thrive in the transformation age. If you want the upgraded experience, make sure you're subscribed to flow code. At flow code, dot news, until next time, stay focused and flow driven.