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[Kriss]

 

Got a new quote for you! Today’s message is: “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”

 

[Music]

 

[Kriss]

 

Welcome back to a new episode of the Positivity Powerhouse Podcast. I’m Kriss, and I will be your positivity powerhouse until the end of time.

 

You can’t get rid of me that easily!

 

You’re STUCK with me!

 

So, make the most of it!

 

Today’s message from the wall is: “The best way to predict your future is to invent it.”

 

Now, a really smart guy said this, so let me paint the picture:

 

It’s 1982, way back in the wayback machine. Almost forty years ago.

 

Almost FORTY FREAKING YEARS AGO.

 

1982. There was a conference about schools having computers in them. Think forty years ago computers. Like, Commodore 64 era computers. 

 

Now, if you youngin’s don’t know anything about computers back in those days, there were no laptops, there were no tablets. Even a regular desktop computer that we have today is sleek and streamlined compared to these MONSTROUSLY HUGE THINGS they had back then.

 

And, the things you can do on a computer now, you couldn’t even dream about doing back in 1982. You could type. You could maybe do a spreadsheet. You could code in Basic to make a little rocket ship go from the bottom of your screen up to the top of your screen and vanish off the top of your screen.

 

But most importantly, you could play Pong. 

 

Now, if you don’t know what Pong is, it is one of the greatest video games EVER invented. And you could play it on a computer in 1982.

 

It was exciting.

 

So, way back in the wayback machine, there’s this conference about computers in schools, and this periodical called “Info World” covered it, and that’s where this quote came from.

 

This guy named Alan Kay said it.

 

He was a speaker at the conference. He was a former member of the Xerox PARC, the Palo Alto Research Center, which still remains a big freakin’ deal today. They do all kinds of research and development for computers and technology, and you know, all the high-level thinking stuff that you and I don’t do about  computers.

 

I do the high-level thinking about mindset, motivation, mood, self-esteem, selfcare, sanity, how do we meld that all together. How do we be better people than we are right now? How do we get better? How do we live better? How do we do better? How do we BE better? 

 

They do all of that with technology. Like, way up here in the cloud, somewhere.

 

And, at the time, Alan wasn’t just a former member of Xerox PARC, he was the chief scientist at Atari. 

 

Now, children, if you don’t know what Atari is, it was a video game system that existed before Nintendo.

 

Now, I assume you’ve heard of Nintendo, ‘cause we’ve got Nintendo 2? Nintendo something? It’s before the Xbox and before the Wii, and before the Play Station, way back in the day.

 

The Atari, where you had fun games like Space Invaders, where the little rocket ship (you were in the little rocket ship) and it moved back and forth across the screen so you could kill the bad guys who were coming down from the top of the screen.

 

And, the more bad guys you kill, the more bad guys there were, and the faster they came down.

 

And you had to kill them all or they would blow up your little rocket ship. It was going back and forth across the bottom of the screen. 

 

Back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth. That was video gaming back in the day, was back and forth, and the little rocket ship shooting at the space invaders.

 

Yeah, but, Alan Key said, “The best way to predict your future is to invent it.”

 

And, since he’s a really smart guy, we’re gonna listen to him, ‘cause we listen to really smart people around here.

 

So, how does it impact the Triple M’s: the mood, the mindset, and the motivation?

 

Mood

The mood, of course, is gonna be hopeful and optimistic, but it’s also kind of- [coughs] excuse me! 

 

It’s also a little bit pessimistic because the best way to predict my future is to create it? Oh God.

 

Now what am I gonna do?

Mindset

So, that leads into the mindset, where, you know, on the one hand, you’re totally upbeat, and everything is possible, and I can create my future!

 

And then there’s the “oh shit” layer that comes in with, “Oh…hell. I have to create my future? What do I even do with that information? Where do I start? Where do I- What? Huh? HOW? AHH!!”

 

That kind of feeling going on. 

 

So, six in one, half a dozen in another, even odds.

Motivation

So, when it comes down to the motivation, basically, the good news is, your future is in your hands.

 

The bad news is, your future is in your hands?

 

Either way, your future is in your hands, so you may as well make the most out of it.

 

I talked about this in a blog post that I wrote several years ago about how I was great. I had gone grocery shopping – grocery shopping.

 

I went grocery shopping, and I had braces on both legs, and back brace on, and wrist braces on, I had a tens machine with little lead wires going to both of my shoulders. I had a cane in each hand that I put in the grocery cart so that I could cling desperately to the grocery cart, praying I wasn’t gonna fall over. 

 

And I was a hot freakin’ mess.

 

This older gentleman came up to me and said, “Miss, can I help you? Do you need some help? Let me get some of the workers here to come and help you.”

 

[Kriss’s phone rings] Pardon me, didn’t know that was going off.

 

So, he was trying to get me some help.

 

And I said, “Oh, no. No, sir. I’m doing great.”

 

And he looked at me like I had lost my mind, like I had two heads or something. 

 

And, you know, what he didn’t realize was that it wasn’t a matter of being great physically, because objectively I was obviously not great. I had all these braces on, and all these wires, about to fall over, and, you know, obviously in a lot of pain.

 

So, from any objective measure, I was not great. 

However, I chose to be happy. I chose to be great because I looked at it this way [coughs]: I could either have all this pain, and all these braces, and all these wires, and be about to fall over, and be miserable, or I could be in all this pain, and have all these braces, and have all these wires, and be about to fall over, and be happy.

 

Either way, I had all the braces and all the wires and all the canes and about to fall over anyway.

 

So, I chose to be happy.

 

I chose to be great.

 

And that’s what I had to try and make this little old man understand, that while trying not to fall over at the Harris Teeter. 

 

So, this is kind of like that. The good news is the future is in your hands. The bad news is the future is in your hands.

 

Either way, the future is in your hands.

 

You can do whatever you want with it.

 

You can decide that you want to be a novelist, and you’re gonna write great novels. Never mind you haven’t written anything since twelfth grade, maybe freshman year of college. You haven’t written anything since the senior thesis paper.

 

You wanna write a novel!

 

So, great! Go write a novel. Take some classes on novel writing. Take some classes on productivity and time management. 

 

Go write your freakin’ novel!

 

Because the future is yours to decide! 

 

Maybe you want to be a doctor, but you’re forty years old, and it’s too late to go to med school. 

 

Let me tell you something: it is never too late to go back to school.

 

I have a great aunt who graduated from high school at 83.

 

Eighty-three freaking years old, finally graduated from high school.

 

You know what she did to celebrate? She got a tattoo of a rose on her left shoulder. 

 

Eighty-three freaking years old.

 

Graduates from high school. Gets a tattoo.

 

She’s AWESOME.

 

It’s never too late to get married if you wanna get married. I have another great aunt, other side of the family, who found her true love at, I think, 79? And got married. 

 

And people were shaking their heads, going, “What is she doing? Why is she getting married this late in life?”

 

‘Cause she loves the guy. She wants to be with him for the rest of her life. For the rest of his life. For the rest of their lives. And being married means something. 

 

It’s not just a piece of paper. It actually means something. 

 

So, whatever you wanna in the future, the world is your oyster. 

 

I never understood what that meant until I got to thinking about it, going, “Hmm, oysters have pearls. So you go grab your freaking pearl.”

 

So, what have you done today that would make future you happy?

 

That’s a sticky note on THAT wall. Well, that’s a bookcase. 

 

There’s a bookcase over there that the end has sticky notes on it.

 

What have you done today that would make future you happy?

 

If you wanna be a novelist, maybe you could look into novel writing classes.

 

Maybe you could pick up a copy of Stephen King’s book on writing, which is the best writing book I have ever read in my LIFE (and I’ve read a lot of them, ‘cause I’m a writer in addition to being a coach). 

 

Maybe you start looking into med schools and see what prerequisites you might be missing from when you went to college twenty years ago.

 

Maybe you need to join a dating service. Start seeing what’s out there. What kind of true love you can find. What kind of happily ever after you can create for yourself. 

 

What have you done today that would make future you happy? 

 

Because the best way to create- to predict your future is to create it.

 

Catch you on the flip side!

 

[Outro]

 

Want more great content? Head on over to PositivityPowerhouse.com for four main reasons (you know me and my lists):

 

First, you’ll find more episodes of the Positivity Powerhouse Podcast just waiting for you to devour, either with video, audio, or the transcript, depending on your preferences.

 

Second, you can read the blog. I spend a lot of time writing these great blog posts and the hemming and hawing over whether anybody’s ever reading them. So, go read them! OK?

 

Third, you can find out all the great ways you can work with me as your mindset and motivation coach. 

 

And, fourth, you can join the email list, where you’ll find out all the newest details about the first three options on the list.

 

So, what are you waiting for? Turn me off already! Go hit up PositivityPowerhouse.com 

 

See ya next time! 

 

[Music]

 

<== Previous episode – What have you done today to make you feel proud?