1: In her book Imaginable, New York Times bestselling author Jane McGonigal takes her readers through what she calls “futures thinking” that “inspires us to take actions today that set us up for future happiness and success.”
The guided exercise has us imagine our future self in great detail.
Imagine that it is our 80th birthday…
“What are we wearing? Where are we? What’s around us? Who is around us? What do we hear and smell? What do we have planned for the day?”
Scientists call this “episodic future thinking” or EFT for short.
In an article for TED, Jane writes, “EFT isn’t an escape from reality. It’s a way of playing with reality, to discover risks and opportunities we might not have considered…. It’s a powerful decision-making, planning and motivational tool. It helps us decide: Is this a world I want to wake up in? What do I need to do to be ready for it? Should I change what I’m doing today to make this future more or less likely?”
The power of this exercise is that it “cements an imagined future in our memory, meaning we can return to this ‘memory’ and use its lessons to make changes or decisions in the present,” Sahil Bloom writes in his book The 5 Types of Wealth.
These questions help us move from envisioning our desired future to defining the necessary actions for today.
2: “Let’s try it,” Sahil suggests. Let’s “close our eyes and take a deep breath. Imagine we’re at our eightieth birthday celebration.
“All our favorite people are walking in, cards and flowers in hand, big smiles on their faces. We’re sitting at the main table, enjoying our favorite drink and meal, when the ambient music starts to get louder.
“It’s our favorite song,” he says. “Our foot starts tapping on the floor underneath the table, right along with the beat. Memories of wonderful moments with the song flood back into our brains. People start to get up and walk to the center of the room. Everyone is looking over at us.”
What happens now?
“Do we get up and start dancing with our loved ones? Or are we stuck, forced to enjoy the music from our chair?”
The answer to that question will be shaped by our actions long before our 80th birthday celebration.
We can ask ourselves: “If we continue our current daily actions, will we be dancing or sitting?” “What actions do we need to add or adjust in the present to more closely align our future with our ideal vision for it?”
And: “What would our eighty-year old self want us to do today?”
3: In prior RiseWithDrews, we’ve analyzed three of the five types of wealth that Sahil explores in his book: Time Wealth, Social Wealth, and Mental Wealth.
This week and next, we are going to be exploring the fourth type of wealth: Physical Wealth.
“A life of Physical Wealth is grounded in executing the daily actions—regular movement, proper nutrition, and thoughtful recovery—to live a vital present and build toward our ideal imagined future,” Sahil writes.
“Our future self is the direct heir of the long-term compounding of our actions in the present.”
Ask: What would our eighty-year-old self say?
Perhaps something like: We “get only one body,” Sahil observes, “and the way we treat it today is reflected and amplified in the way it will treat us years in the future.”
“Treat your body like a house we have to live in for another seventy years,” was the powerful advice shared by an eighty-year-old elder Sahil interviewed, who had deep regret for the alcohol-heavy, exercise-light lifestyle he had lived.
Because our body is the house we will live in for the rest of our lives.
“And yet a lot of people treat that house like trash,” Sahil observes. “They drink and eat too much, don’t sleep enough, rarely move, and avoid the basic investments and repairs necessary to keep it maintained.”
There is another way.
“The disciplined pursuit of a life of Physical Wealth is a catalyst for growth,” he observes. “It initiates a mindset shift—it reminds us that we are in control, that we have the power.”
And here’s the most exciting part. “That mindset shift creates,” Sahil notes, “ripples that extend well beyond the core to every area of life.”
We will begin tomorrow to explore the three controllable pillars of Physical Wealth that make all the difference: Movement, Nutrition, and Recovery.
More tomorrow.
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Reflection: If I honestly picture my eightieth birthday, am I on the dance floor or stuck in my chair—and what does that reveal about how I’m treating my body today?
Action: Choose one small, specific change—more movement, better nutrition, or better sleep—that my eighty‑year‑old self would thank me for, and commit to practicing it every day this week.