Ep #231: Who Are You Becoming?

Welcome to The Life Coach School Podcast, where it’s all about real clients, real problems, and real coaching. And now your host, Master Coach Instructor, Brooke Castillo.

Hey, my friends. How are you guys? Holy cow, I am better now. I was just so sick. I’m going to tell you, I rarely get sick. I can’t even remember – it’s been at least five years since I’ve gotten sick. So I got sick. I got the flu. My husband generously gave it to me and it was when we were on vacation.

We had taken a road trip here from Dallas to Lake Tahoe to visit my parents and we wanted to take our new jet skis with us, so we drove there and we stayed there for two weeks. Super fun time, oh my gosh, loved it. The drive with the two teenage boys was, let’s just say, interesting and thank goodness for AirPods.

But we actually had a really amazing time and when I was in Tahoe, I got so sick. And I felt it coming, it started in my throat, then it, like, laid me out. So I was sick and I decided to just give in to the sickness and not fight it and climb in bed and watch documentaries and not expect anything of myself.

We had friends that came to visit us and I hung out with them a little bit, but mostly just stayed in my bed and took care of myself and now I’m feeling better. But I will tell you, it is amazing how much, let’s just call it phlegm, the body can produce over a three week period. Oh my god, you guys, so disgusting. Sorry, over-share, I was amazed at the human body.

So I’m also amazed that the human body took care of me so well and now I feel amazing and I have a new appreciation for what it’s like not to be sick. So it was also really nice to be able to take time off work and to go and be in Lake Tahoe and have my team handle everything and to really just be logged out and spend some time with my mom and my dad and all of our friends that live in California that came to visit us and all my kids friends and my godson came to visit us.- it was just a really nourishing time.

But I was also very excited to get back. I love working and so I was really excited to get back to work and to start working with my students. I have kind of come into this position in my business right now where my success and what I’m producing within my business is really predictable and my main focus has really shifted to my students and my clients.

So I’m always thinking about my clients in Scholars and what I can do for them and how I can help them and how they can think differently, and I’m always thinking about you guys on the podcast. It’s kind of like one big, I think, like group of students I think of you guys together and the topics that I want to include and teach you. And it’s mostly what I’m learning, right.

And then I’m also really deep, deep, deep into business and taking everything that I have learned to create this eight-figure business and apply it and teach it to every single entrepreneur who wants to know it. And so in that light, we have decided to do a workshop, a business workshop, an entrepreneurial workshop for everyone.

It’s not just for my certified coaches; it’s actually for everyone. And that’s going to be an in-person event that we do in Dallas in March. I’ll be sending out information. Make sure you’re on our list for that announcement that I think is going to be one of the best values that I’m going to give over – I think it’s going to be a two-day workshop.

So basically, everything I’ve learned over the last 14 years about business and about online business and about making money and about all of the obstacles that I’ve faced and that I see all of my students face and how to overcome them quickly so you don’t have to take as long as I did to make as much money as I’m making. That’s my wish for everyone.

So I don’t think there’s any limit to the amount of money we can all make. And here’s what I believe – this is my belief system and I think you should adopt it; the more money we make, the more money we make. There’s this idea that the more money one person makes, the less money someone else makes. That’s not true because money is produced by producing value and human ingenuity is what produces value, and we are limitless when it comes to producing ideas and value for the world. And that is why we can all keep getting richer together and keep contributing together.

So I’m super-excited for that workshop. Again, make sure you’re on my list and I’ll send you information about that. But let’s talk about what we’re going to talk about today. We’re going to talk about this idea of who you are becoming.

And I’ve been talking a lot about this and teaching a lot about this for the past couple of years, but it’s fascinating to me how, when it comes right down to it, when it comes down to really applying this to your life, people get really confused by it. And I think it’s because we are very much programmed to create our life based on our past.

So we are very focused on who we think we are and what we think we’re capable of. We look to our past to answer that question and we look to what we have been able to do in the past to answer that question. And the past doesn’t answer that question.

Think about it; the past cannot tell us what we’re capable of because what we’re capable of is yet to be seen. What we’re capable of is our capacity to grow. So when I ask you, what are you capable of, and you look to your past, you’ve completely limited your growth capacity, your capability of your future.

And, unfortunately, that’s what so many of you are doing. So when I ask you, why aren’t you taking the action that you need to take to create this result that you want and you guys are telling me, “Well I’ve never done it before…” Can you imagine if I’d asked you that when you were learning how to walk?

“How come you’re not practicing learning how to walk?” “Well, I’ve never done it before.” Well right, that’s why you have to do it. You have to do it. You have to practice it. You have to fall down. That’s how you learn how to do it.

Can you imagine if I said, “Well I can’t walk because I’ve never done it before?” You’d never do anything. And yet as adults, we say that all the time as if it makes sense. “Well, I can’t become that because I’ve never done that before. I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to make money.”

Okay, so you go and you look at what you can do to create the capacity and the capability to do whatever it is you want to do. So I really want you to switch these questions from who am I, because it makes it sound like it’s already defined. For most of you, when I ask you that question, you’re interpreting it as if it is something that is static, that has already been created, that maybe you were even born with, instead of looking at it as something you get to create.

You get to create who it is you are and what it is you are capable of. So when I ask you the question, “Who are you becoming?” It’s so much more interesting and it helps you focus on that future of yours. So when you ask people, “How are you?” If they have something that they’re looking forward to, if they have something that’s coming up that they’re super excited about, a lot of times, they’ll be, like, “I’m great. I’m about to go to Hawaii.” Or, “I’m about to go on vacation.” Or, “I’m about to graduate.” Or whatever…

So they’re focusing on that future self and they’re focusing on their anticipation of that that’s creating that energy in this moment and defining how they are in this moment. And the same is true when you ask some people how they are and they say, “Well, I’ve had a rough day, yesterday was hard, my childhood was hard…” Or whatever it is that happened yesterday was hard, and they’re defining how they are based on that past.

So that’s something that you can see in everyday life pretty easily and most people are trending towards their past to define how they’re doing right now and they’re trending towards the circumstances of what happened or the circumstances of their life to define how they are, and we want to change that.

That’s what we teach on Scholars. That’s what we practice in Scholars, to define yourself on your own terms based on how you are based on how you are thinking, and that will then create the life that you want in the future. But if we take it to the other level, which is how are you, and we take it to who are you, I want you to know that you can look to your future to define that for yourself.

And when I work with people who are really struggling with alcohol, a lot of what they do is define themselves by their drinking history and by what the have done in their past with the drinking. And one of the things that I really help them do is when you define yourself by that, that’s what you’re recreating. I want you to imagine – that is one of your gifts as a human being is your imagination – I want you to imagine what you want your future to be.

And, by the way, your future can be whatever the F you want it to be and you don’t have to ask anyone’s permission, period. So what do you want your future to be, and that can be who you are. You can define yourself by where you are going and who you are becoming. And this is especially important if where you’re coming from or your past has not been what you want it to be.

If you want a future that is better than your past, then you define yourself now by that future, by that better future. So I’m going to ask you who you are becoming and the way that you answer that question is also how you can answer the question who you are.

I have often answered the question of who I am and who I want to be and what is my mission, is to be an example of what is possible. And I’ve thought a lot about how that has manifested in my life differently based on what I imagine for my future, right. It’s a pretty general vision statement, a purpose statement, for myself.

But as I imagine bigger, better, more extraordinary futures, I feel like I personally become bigger, better and more extraordinary in my present because what happens is – and remember this, you guys, your thoughts create your feelings, so remember that your imagination and what you imagine is a collection of thoughts.

So when you can imagine something big and bright and amazing for your future and believe that, then you create those emotions now. When you’re thinking about things that you regret in your past and things that happened to you in your past, when you think about that, you’re creating that emotion now.

Now, the first step, of course, is answering the question; what do you want your future to be? And nine times out of 10, when I ask people this question, they don’t know what they want. They don’t know how their future self is better or different than their present self. They don’t know that they’re in charge of creating their own future, and in fact, they think their future is determined by their capability, that’s determined by what’s in their past.

And so this is a huge paradigm shift for most people. Most people have to understand that your life, your present, your future, is created in your mind and therefore it is completely and 100% optional. You can default to your past to create your future. You can default to the complaining whining excuse-making energy of other people. Or, you can decide right now, in this moment, that that will not be you in the future. Maybe that was you in the past, but it’s not you in the future.

And as soon as you decide that it’s not you in the future and that you have a different future and you start thinking those thoughts about your future, you start changing in the present. You start becoming who it is that you want to be in this moment by simply imagining that future.

I am becoming someone who is… I am becoming a… Whatever it is you want, you can put whatever it is you want there; a nicer person, a more successful person, a more organized person. I am becoming someone who helps other people make millions of dollars. Oh my god, that makes me so excited.

When I start thinking about who I’m becoming, I start getting to be that person now. So for you guys, I want you to imagine who you are as simply who you decide to be. And as you decide to be someone different, you will feel out of alignment with who you think you are. But just know, those are two mental constructs that you have to hold at once in order to change.

So you have this idea of who you are and what you’re capable of based on your past, you have this idea of who you are and what you’re capable of based on the imagined future that you’ve allowed yourself to create in your mind, and then there’s this conflict between the two. And you get to decide to tell your brain, to program your brain, with your possible future with who you are becoming instead of with who you’ve been.

I’ve recommended two books on this pretty regularly. One is The Final Word on Power, the other one is Breaking the Habit of Becoming Yourself. I think that reading those books repeatedly has helped me really ingrain this in my life, but not just reading them but doing them; creating myself from the ashes of my past thoughts that weren’t serving me.

You have to memorize the part of the new you, of who you’re becoming. So here’s what I want you guys to think. And I’ve talked about this before, but I’m going to reemphasize it here. I want you to think about you as an actor learning a part. So, if you are an actor and you know that you’re going to play the part of a millionaire life coach, let’s say, or someone that’s married to the man of your dreams, whatever. Pick that part that you want for yourself.

You imagine that future for yourself. Now, the first thing you have to do is write the script for that new you. What are the thoughts that you’re having? What are the things that you’re feeling? What are the things that you’re doing? You have to write the script in detail.

Once you write that script and you know what it will be like to be you when you are becoming the you you want to become, then you memorize that script. You practice that script. And more than that, you can’t just learn the lines and say them like this, like they have no feeling or meaning, you have to feel that script.

You have to become what they call that method actor, where you actually become the person that you’re acting. You know, they talk about these actors that are playing a part of someone and the whole time they’re filming the movie, they stay in the part of that person. They become that person. That’s what you need to do. You need to become the future you now as a method actor.

You need to write and memorize the lines and practice them in your life as you are being the person you are becoming. That is how it works. Now, people will say to me, well that’s inauthentic, which makes me laugh because what does it mean to be authentic? To replay your past? Is that authenticity?

Is authenticity saying, “This is the kind of person I am and I can’t change?” How can you say that that’s authentic? Whatever comes naturally to you is what’s authentic? No, because what comes naturally to you is the habits of patterns of thoughts that you’ve had in your past, and many of those are terrible.

And just because they come natural to you, doesn’t mean they’re authentic, it just means they’re easy. Being authentic and living the truth of who you actually want to be, that is authenticity; telling yourself the truth of the life you want, of who you most want to be, not who anyone else wants you to be, by the way, but who you want to be, without apology, by the way.

Be you all the way with no apology; that’s when life starts to get super, super exciting. So you write the script, you memorize the thoughts, you memorize and feel the feelings and you take the exact actions that you will take when you are the person that you are becoming.

Here’s a huge distinction; you do not think about this as if you’re taking the action to become the person you’re becoming. You take the action of being the person you’re becoming. Here’s a great example of that – here’s how I recognize it.

I realized one day that people that don’t desire alcohol never think about alcohol. They don’t think about how they’re going to quit. They don’t think about what they’re going to tell everybody about not drinking. They don’t think about what drink they’re going to order instead of alcohol. They don’t worry about there being alcohol at places. They don’t negotiate how much they’re going to drink.

People that don’t desire alcohol just never think about it. And so, if I wanted to be the person that didn’t think about alcohol, that didn’t desire alcohol, I had to think about what people think about who don’t desire alcohol. I had to stop thinking about quitting alcohol. I had to stop thinking about what I was going to do to not drink it. I had to start being a person who didn’t care about it at all.

That is the distinction, my friends. You have to start being the person that already has it and think that way and feel that way and be and act that way. You do not come preloaded with who you are. Who you are is how you have been programmed, and most of you have been programmed by other people.

But now, you’re an adult – most of you – and you’re in that space where you can now program yourself. You can step outside of your brain. How magnificent is that, by the way, that you can step outside of your brain and program it to believe and think and memorize anything you want it to think and believe and memorize? You are not at the affect of your brain, you are in charge of it.

You have been given a primitive brain, but you’ve also been given a sophisticated brain that can manage that primitive brain. Most of us don’t even bother with it.

This is how I was thinking about it the other day, it’s like someone just sent you a brand new iPhone and you don’t even take it out of the box. Brand new, that’s what most of us are doing with our prefrontal cortex. We’re not even using the sophisticated technology that we have available to us to manage our lives; we just leave it in the box. We don’t even get to experience what it’s like to be fully in control of our own brain because – and here’s the reason why – because it takes practice.

The daily work that we do in Scholars, the day in and the day out and the programming is what’s required for us to create the exact life that we want, but we can’t be bothered to even open the box, let alone plug it in and charge it. So everything in your life in front of you is a blank slate. You don’t have to bring any of your past with you; none of it. You can leave it all in the dust if you want.

That blank slate in front of you is yours. It is your gift for being a human and having an imagination. You could change everything in your life right now if you want. You could move your house – and I’m talking about in your imagination – where would you live? Who would you be? What work would you do? What would you spend your money on? What care would you drive? Who would you talk to? Who wouldn’t you talk to? What would you stop doing?

Start imagining being that person. What you want is what’s authentic and you can just want what you want, as Dan Sullivan taught me. You don’t have to justify it, you don’t have to explain it, you can just want what you want because what you want matters just because you want it. And if you like your reason for wanting it – if that reason serves you in your life, do it. Do it all day.

That’s what I want to offer you. So the question is, who are you becoming? Whatever you answer to that – and by the way, you can answer whatever it is you want – as soon as you imagine it, as soon as you imagine it, it has become something. It has become a possibility. It had become something that now exists as soon as you imagine it.

Think about that. That’s, like, powerful to know. When I imagine a possibility for myself, I’ve now created something that hadn’t been created before, that didn’t exist before. And it’s now an idea that exists and is waiting to be realized. All creation, everything we’ve ever created, starts with that step, starts with that possibility first.

And as we rehearse and memorize our possibilities, we create them. We start being who we’re becoming. That script, rehearsed with enough emotion to feel it, to do it, lets us become it.

And you guys have heard me talk about this before – that is what it means to live from your future, all changes in your life, all of them, happen in your mind. We think that change happens because circumstance happens out there in the world. That is not how it works. We create the possibility in our mind of something existing, and then it exists.

How often have you heard me talk about making $100 million? It is now a possibility in the future. It’s now a thing, this idea, this possibility. And it’s not just a thing that exists, it is something that is my anchor. It’s my rudder. It’s my director. It’s my vision; my entire team’s vision, my entire family’s vision.

How you choose to create and become your future will determine how you interpret and react to everything. It will help you make all of your decision. If you are acting and feeling and thinking as if your desired future is true, then you are acting from it being real now. It is real now. The possibility is real now, which makes me living in that possibility being that person who creates that reality.

Now, if you go into default and you don’t create that possibility for yourself, you will live from the possibility of your past, which is a bummer because there’s no growth there. Now, I’ll tell you that creating a possibility in your future that creates some tension, that creates some dissonance, is a beautiful thing because it means that you’re going to have to grow, because if it felt good, if it felt easy, then you already are that.

When you can think about your future and generate your emotion from the possibility of that, that will fuel you. That emotion will fuel that possibility, that idea, that possibility will be your inspiration. You have created it and then it fuels you.

If all your dreams had already come true, if you had already created that reality for yourself, how would you respond to specific situations? How would you respond to everything? Live from there. Live from that space. Live from that future space because what is reality, my friends? What is it?

What you believe is real and as soon as you believe your possibility to be real and you live from that, no matter what, it’s inevitable that you create it. You can put what you want in that R-line; did you guys know that? I figured this out recently; you can put whatever you want in your R-line. It might as well be extraordinary.

The more extraordinary your desired R-line is, the more you believe in that, the more extraordinary your life will be. Who are you becoming? Make sure you’ve decided what the answer is. Alright, my friends, I’ll talk to you next week. Bye-bye

Hey, if you enjoy listening to this podcast, you have to come check out Self-Coaching Scholars. It's my monthly coaching program where we take all this material and we apply it. We take it to the next level and we study it. Join me over at the TheLifeCoachSchool.com/join. Make sure you type in the TheLifeCoachSchool.com/join. I'd love to have you join me in Self-Coaching Scholars. See you there.