The Man I’m Becoming vs. The Man I’m Living

Man, I've been avoiding this one for two months.

This episode is about my relationship with future me—the version of myself 10 years out that's been my compass, my mentor, my whole damn motivation. But also? My biggest drain. The thing that keeps me on autopilot, watching my life through a window instead of actually living it.

I get real about how I've been "Thuggin' it out" through everything—four kids, the chaos, the mental and emotional weight of it all—because I keep telling myself future me will have it figured out. Future me will be calm, peaceful, living instead of surviving. But what's the cost of constantly fast-forwarding through today to get to tomorrow?

I talk about shame as fuel, growing up in negativity, and how I realized I've been numb to my own struggles for years. This podcast has become therapy in real time, and honestly, I'm learning about myself as I'm saying this stuff out loud.

This isn't some motivational rah-rah about your future self. It's me being honest about what happens when you spend so long looking ahead that you forget to be present. If you've ever felt like you're just surviving day to day, waiting for some future version of your life to kick in—this one's for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Man, I'm becoming and why I keep choosing it. To the man that inspires me, to the man that drives me and guides me as well as drains me. The future me. The future me is my compass. It's my North Star. It's what I use to keep myself moving forward. Being in the present isn't always easy. And that's why I look for future me to guide me. Future me motivates me, energizes me, inspires me, also drains me. At times, future me feels like a preview of what my life will be like, what I would be like, how things will be. And other times it feels like a pipe dream. That I'll never actually achieve it, see it, accomplish it, or be that person. But being so to be honest with you, I'm not always really focused about the current moment. Because current moments are hard at certain times. Like right now, life is hard. Four kids, three pets, as well as just trying to figure out who are you and all of it. And so I look at FutureMe to help answer that question. I always have a forward outlook. And it's what guides me. It's also what drains me. Because when I think of my future, I think of this person that I'm going to be and how life is going to be. I don't see it all the way, but I feel it. The vibe, the energy, and the person that looks to help the current me. There's never really words, it's really just slight visions, but mostly feelings. I feel like life is going to be peaceful, calm, enjoyable, but at the same time different. No longer feeling like surviving, but living. Right now, life is a lot of surviving. Surviving today to the next day. And it's not always financial. Doesn't have to be. Sometimes it's emotional and mental. And right now it's the second half a lot. Having four kids is a blessing. Having three pets along with it is amazing. But man, after talking to my friend Greg, and he said, Your house is busy. I feel it. Wanted to podcast for a couple months and haven't been able to due to just needing a break, due to just realizing that having twins is a lot harder than you thought it would be. And then addition to having two other kids who are in new phases of life. The future me brings peace to a lot of this. Every time I say right now is tough, later it won't be. Right now is a struggle. Later it'll be achievement. I always have a 10-year outlook. Don't know why. Always had it. And with that, began this relationship that I have with myself and the future version of myself who's my mentor. It's weird because again, there's not really a lot of words that are exchanged, if any. It's just a lot of feelings, but it's the compass for myself. As a kid, I think everybody done it, right? Um, and that's an assumption. And the reason I say that is because when you're younger, you're saying, hey, me at this 25 years old is gonna be owning a house, having a car paid off, traveling, multimillionaire, all this craziness, right? And 25 comes. It's not that for a lot of us. Wasn't for me. I mean it's depressing sometimes. It's depressing a lot of times. Okay, we're warming up. Yo, future me. You inspire me, you guide me, and you're my guardian and mentor, but you also one of my biggest drainers. You sometimes make me feel like I'll never achieve the version of you that I'm letting you down, which is odd because I'm letting me down. And it feels like that when life is hard right now, but future version isn't. Future version feels calm, peaceful, no longer surviving days, but living them. Put out an agenda. I get previews of that, but then current moments feel like that's a pipe dream. That there's this pressure in order for me to achieve that future version, that potential that I have inside, that I feel that I have, that I somehow believe in it. But it's because future me tells me it's possible. I see it's possible, I feel that it's possible. It's it's awesome because future me sometimes helps me what gets through the struggles of today. When I feel like life is too hard, that I'll never see that day. I just sit back and feel that no, that day's that day's come, that day's past. So right now is just a moment that's leading you to where you gotta go. I know life's a journey. I love the journey. I actually enjoy the aspect of aging, unlike probably a lot of people. Every time I get older, I get excited. Every time I get older, I get closer to that version of me that I see 10 years from now, every day. It's a 10-year outlook. Not intentional, it's not like I track against it, but I feel against it. And as I get wiser, I realize that decades have something that you can describe in a single word. You know, your zero to tens is learning, your tens to twenties is enjoyment, for me it's happiness. Twenties to thirties is grinding, thirties to forties is surviving. That's not how I always want it to be, and that's not how I always know it's going to be. I just know that in order for me to get to where I gotta go, I gotta grind through it all. You don't you don't get anywhere without struggles, but you can get to where you wanna be through belief. And I believe the future me. Well get me there. Believe. I believe in tomorrow. I feel the shame of today and the pain of yesterday. What what the hell does that all mean, right? Well, shame is my greatest motivator. Always has been. I know being vulnerable is what I've been doing on this podcast, but it's also very difficult for me because it unlocks a lot of stuff. Didn't even know doors were certain closed existed. And um I don't know if I like it. I don't know. I really don't know. I do know I learned a lot about myself. I learned that I uh grew and can and kept myself moving from pressure. Here's what I believe. I believe I don't like the feeling of slowing down. When I feel like I'm slowing down, I feel like things are getting harder. It's probably easier to just push through it. Easier to ignore it, harder to acknowledge it, even harder to speak on it. And that's to be honest, is I I've I've avoided this episode for a while, and it's not even like it's a crazy episode, it's just the fact that I'm talking about me. It feels easy to just talk about yourself, especially when you're doing it for a while, and people think that like, oh, you're good at it, but reality is just I'm really not. I'm really, really, really, really good at pushing myself through discomfort because I see the outbound version, outbound results of it, the benefits. I'm willing to go through dog shit a thousand times to get to what I want to get to, because I don't want to discourage myself. Background environment growing up is very negative, not really ever talked about positives, achievements, but always reminded, uh threatened, feared of shame, falling behind, being behind. That shit sucks, man. I gotta be honest, man. Like, the days that I take a break, I feel like I'm cheating myself. I'm cheating my future version. Oh, you took a break. That future version of you now may not happen because you took this fucking break. And then so like I keep pushing myself, I keep ignoring, like, oh, I'm tired, it doesn't matter. Because you're you're gonna work through it all because of that future date is when you get to actually like truly enjoy it, and now I'm sitting in my current life. Like, why am I just going through dog shit if I don't have to? Not saying my life is, but like the mindset that I feel like I have to have that in order, in order to get to where I want to be for myself. And and I had to sit back and have to think about it as I was like coming up with this episode, like, where does that really, really, really come from? And I sat and I like wrote this episode and like modified, and then I like I wrote it, and then I like modified, and I wrote it, and I modified it, and then I understood it, and then I read it, and then I said, damn, negativity is what drives me, the fear of it. Um that's what gives me my persevation, my you know, my whole resistance to just acknowledging when things are like that. Number one expression you would hear me tell my wife when like things are baggage, just dug it out, just dog it out. You can dog it out, I'm gonna dug it out. Not I'm gonna acknowledge it. Not I'm gonna sympathize, or it's just look, it sucks. You know it sucks. Who cares? Just keep going because it's on is honestly what you what you need to do. That's what I need to do. I need to just swallow it, hold it in. And it worked, man. That didn't that thing worked for me for freaking ever. Didn't even know that that was the fuel to the fire. And then one day it just hit me like bam. This is what this is what you you you do, this is your internal voice. Like telling you, like, you have all this potential, but if you don't grind every day, you're never gonna actually achieve it. And that feeling of not achieving potential, that feeling of not getting to the destination that I know was possible just keeps me going. I don't know if it's something I always want to keep going because like the ideal outcome for me is just serene, calm, peaceful enjoyment. But like the current mindset is just like chaos and hardship and yeah, it's just in the ability to just be numb to it intentionally. And honestly, you don't even know you're numb to it. How could you know? Right? Like if this if the feeling is so common, this feeling is the way of life is just your norm. It's not until you sit down and do a podcast like I do, and then you realize, like, shit, bro, like you probably were really going through stuff and just didn't even know it. Didn't want to know it. I still don't want to. I mean, I've I've been getting a lot more vulnerable in this podcast lately, getting a lot of more like getting a lot of kudos uh from people about it. And you're brave and new to this shit. I I'm none of that, man, to be honest. I'm I'm learning myself in every episode as I'm doing it. It's just like things are just coming out, and then I'm digesting it in real time, and then I'm just like, wow, and then I am like this podcast is therapeutic, this podcast is motivating. This this podcast is a behind the scenes of like me and fatherhood and manhood and and everything. And but now I realize this podcast is me, like it's it's I as I write these episodes. I'm like discovering so much about myself, and then also learning so much about where I really want to be and who I really want to be. When I was younger, I'm like, I would never be this type of person, and then I'm at this current phase, and I have certain traits that I don't like, and then I'm just like, man, I'm like ashamed of it. It's like, wow, I have said I would never have these traits, I would never do those things, I would never say those things. And then the time comes and then you you do it, and then I'm just like, you know what, but the future I won't. I'm always gonna look at the future of me. The future of me is my mentor, the future of me is my guide, the future of me is just everything. Is the future me though? Not really sure. The future me brings a lot of peace to myself. Because like I can put my current self on autopilot. That's what I'm learning. That's what I've been I've been talking to my wife about lately. Like, I've just uncovered that I've spent years of my life on autopilot because I'm just working towards the future version to turn it on, to turn my turn myself on, my life on. I don't know what the hell I'm turning on, but apparently something is gonna just activate. Because the current version is building that future version. I said to my wife probably a month or two ago, that I've just realized I'm living my life looking through the windows of myself. Just again, that autopilot. I'm just I'm looking at my life through the eyes, as if I'm like watching it back, not living it in real time. When I when I when I realized that, I was so upset with myself, and actually I was feeling bad about it, like why? It's not even necessary. Why do I have to feel like the current, the present, which is a present, right? Like that's it's in the word. The gift, it's almost a burden, it's in the way, it's getting in the way where I want to be at already. I found myself internalizing to change expression a little bit. I don't like to say anymore, I can't wait for something because I just know that's another way of me just pausing where I'm at and activating where I'm gonna be. And then you I reminisce on the past to understand the current. You know what they say, hindstein is 2020, right? I don't I just I don't know. I feel like the future version of myself is just maybe it's my ideal self. I'm not sure. I do know that um probably can say the last five years has been super freaking tough. And I was willing to go through a lot of it just because again, the outcome of like, oh, when it's all said and done, it's gonna be perfect, it's gonna be this. It's just something I gotta thug out. Hey, babe, you're miserable today, just dug it out. Hey, babe, you're going through depression, just dug it out because you're thugging it out for something, because you're living life. In a 10-year outlook, you're living life 10 years in the future. You're living life in a way that you can't even describe to yourself. You just know that there's a feeling there. With this potential, the potential of the man I'm becoming. But I but I know that the potential gives me a lot of fear. Like I've really, really fear that I'm missing out. And so much that I can be. But I'm learning that so much burden in that. Extreme burden. Like you're so focused on tomorrow or anything that you're not paying attention to now that now I have to tell myself when I look at my kids, like, hey, just be thankful for now. Because future you is gonna look at past you saying, Man, you missed out. You missed out on a lot. And I've never been a person to cared about the past. I move, I past happens, I kind of just move forward with it. I accept it, maybe reference it for jokes, maybe for motivation, maybe for sense of progress. But it's not, it's not it's not something that I dwell in ever, really. And now I'm learning I don't even dwell in the current. Don't even really acknowledge the current the future version of myself, man, is freaking awesome. I feel it. I feel like this person is wise. But also feel like this life is what I'm driving towards. I learned that I can describe the decades in my life in one word. Zero to ten. Bliss ten to twenty happiness. Twenty to thirty grinding. Thirty to forty surviving. Future me living. Future me tells me all the time it's gonna be okay. You're gonna be fine. Future me is like that vision in the movies, that mirage that you see and you just don't understand, you can't describe it, but you feel it, you know it exists. And then it also haunts me. It haunts me because again, I have such this outlook that I'm that I'm gonna have this certain thing that once I start feeling like I'm off course or not on par, I start to feel discouraged, and then because I start to feel discouraged, I start to get real afraid of the disappointment that I'm gonna have for myself, and that the future version is gonna be disappointed in myself, the future version is just being broken apart. I have to build the foundation, I have to build it now. I have to do all that because if I don't, there's no strong footing. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous that this is this is how I really think. This is how I really work that I am so consumed about 10 years from now. That even to the point I use it as a I use it away as a way sometimes to give people encouragement. It doesn't mean it encourages anybody else, it encourages me. It always works for me. It's always worked until it slowly stopped working, and that's when I started to say, Whoa, what am I doing? What is happening? Why are you doing this? A lot harder than I ever thought it would be. And the fact that I'm even acknowledging it is it's growth.

unknown 28:02

Right?

SPEAKER_00 28:02

It's that mentorship that I mentioned that the future of me is. You're just pacing yourself, you're just waiting for that moment because you see yourself already at the finish of the game as a champion. That's not saying some bullshit like that. Because right now it's tough, and I don't want it to feel the toughness, and so I'm just gonna just fast forward through it, like the movie Click. I mean, if you've seen the movie Click, he fast forwarded so much that he started to regret it. He was so worried about getting the outcome. It's about the journey, man. The journey is everything. I will say that's probably the only thing I've been very good at. Is that I know it's a journey and I embrace the journey. Me getting older every day. I love it. I love it. I look forward to it. Birthdays are amazing to me. I love telling my wife that, like, man, my back hurts a little bit when I sit. I gotta have better posture. I gotta sit up right because I can't just do that like slouching anymore. I like I like seeing the elderly and then knowing that I'm working towards that. That's probably the only thing I'm good at when it comes to like the mindset of the currentness, because I can put on a blinder, man. I am telling you. I've had people tell me last you know, a couple years that man, I don't know how you're going through it and how you're just pushing through it. And it's because I'm not, I'm not pushing through it. John's an autopilot. John's been an autopilot so long that I realized, oh shit, I need to take autopilot off. But if I do that, who is really driving? Who's been driving? Ten years ago, I'm definitely a different person. Not saying I'm it got worse or whatever. Not saying I even evolved, just I just was different. And I think I think that's the key, right? Like me talking out loud and just listening to the word different, it just feels accurate because future me is different. It's different than current me, it's different than current situations. I like I like I like the the thought of it. Right? Different. I want what's different. This is this is curry me. And it's okay. It's okay you haven't had a podcast episode in two months. I needed a break. I also avoided doing the episode as well. Because I want to avoid dealing with dealing with myself, dealing with uh just talking about all this stuff to an audience. But the reality is I'm not talking to an audience. That's why podcasting is easy, easier than I thought it would be. I don't want to say it's easy. I was talking to my therapist, and she said, and this was a while back, but she was like, the reason you can probably talk on camera is because you know that you're helping other people. I'm less sparked, because she's so red. I am um, it's easy because I'm not really looking to help myself. But the reality is I know that I'm telling myself that's what I gotta do. But when I look back and I see myself, I'm like, man, who is that? Where did that come from? That I have to pretend it's not for me. I tell to my wife, and I said, you know, I think for 2026, it's about me. It's about I talking about my stance. I thought this episode would be so different. I wanted it to be so different. I tried doing this episode. I don't know. 45 minutes and I couldn't get past. Couldn't get past one thing. Because I wanted it to be about this like, oh, the future version of me is like so positive and like it's it's so striving, and it's it's you know, it's my compass, my north stars, what I'm building towards, it's my it's my protector, my guardian. And it's that's all it's uh it's all true. It's all true, but like it's all again back into going into like just avoid the current and put the current in an autopilot and just focus on the future. Just you're just not doing it to a larger audience and let them listen a while, and let them feel like, man, this guy is this guy is like you know, pretty, pretty positive outlook. And and I'm I am a pretty positive outlook, but I feel like there's a lot of strength and honesty, and there's a lot of there's a lot of power in today. Today sucks. Okay. Today's great, even better. But it's about today.