2026 Septmeber 15 Talk to your future, not your past

Hi, this is Jim Cranston from 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com, the podcast and website about reimagining your life. Thanks for joining me to talk about, well, talking into the future, not the past. So let's get started. If you like what you hear today, please leave a like, subscribe, tell your friends, send me a message.

This week I'm going to be talking about how to talk about yourself in terms of the future, as opposed to being in the past.

Here we have the five pillars of life and aging that we talk about, and this week we're going to be mostly, almost exclusively, talking about your identity — the identity piece of you. That's a really fundamental one. That's why it's in the center; it's kind of like what underpins your whole life. And when you talk in the past, what you find out is that it doesn't really serve you well, because the past is behind you and you're moving forward. So you're trying to describe what comes next by what happened before. So that's tonight's topic.

We've talked about this before: society likes to label us with convenient labels, and it's often what your job is. I'm an engineer. I'm a ship's captain. I'm a stay-at-home mom. I'm a nurse. I'm a farmer. These real simple things. But that's like describing a beautiful work of art and saying it's a painting. Yes, that's true, but it's only one little teeny aspect of it. You are the work of art, and you are far more than a couple of syllables of description that society uses to describe your work — let alone you.

This is actually a really important topic and concept, and we'll come back to it and perhaps do a separate video on it. It's that important. But when we describe ourselves very, very small, we put ourselves in a little tiny box, and usually that doesn't serve us very well. We get so used to describing ourselves in terms of our work that a few things tend to happen. The first is that we take the easy shortcut society hands us and just say, "I'm an author," or whatever it is — we insert whatever we're doing for work at the moment. Even when we were younger, that got to be kind of limiting if we did multiple things.

Quick story: a friend of mine in Boston was getting the floor sanded in his house, and he looked at the guy doing the sanding and said, "Hey, aren't you so-and-so, the lead singer and guitarist for that up-and-coming local band?" The guy stops, smiles, turns and says, "Yeah, but I'm only doing that band stuff till I can make it big in floor sanding." Society would label him a laborer, but really, floor sanding is a lot more than just labor. In any case, his real love, his passion, his talent, was in writing and performing music. So he should have been a musician, but that's not his full-time job. Like most labels, they're usually inaccurate, and they mentally limit us — like I said, they put us in a little box. So I'd encourage you not to use them, either for others or for yourself.

Which brings us to exactly how we choose to look at ourselves — not only near or in retirement, but throughout our lives. I see so many older people on social media, and even in the news, talking about how being older is the beginning of the end, how everything is so empty, how they feel so invisible.

First, the good news and the bad news: from the moment you were born, it's the beginning of the end. So, nothing new there. But if you're forward-looking, then the fact that you have a finite amount of time still isn't really an issue. Because when you were 20, you probably weren't fretting about what you were going to be doing when you were 30. You hopefully worked hard, made progress in life, contributed back in some ways, grew in some ways, and continued living. There's absolutely no reason to change that attitude as you age. This is where a forward-looking perspective becomes pretty much essential — now more than ever. There are always new things to do, new things to learn, to enjoy, to share, to live in every way. That doesn't stop, and it certainly doesn't tragically stop, when you reach retirement age or when your career changes.

Remember how damaging negative self-talk is, in every way, both mentally and even physically. So stop looking backwards and saying, "I used to be," and reframe that as "I'm becoming." Think about that — "I used to be" or "I'm becoming" — and then fill it in with all the new things that are ahead of you. If you must reference your previous job title, you can still frame it as just another stepping stone in your continued growth path. Something like, "I used to be a senior project engineer, and now I'm applying that to whatever it is that you want to do next." If you don't think there's any connection between your past and your present, then honestly, you're probably mistaken, or not trying hard enough.

If all you want to do is travel, why did you pick some particular place to visit? Was it the architecture, the culture, the location, the climate? You picked it for some reason. And even if you took one of those chance trips where you don't know where you're going until you pay, then you picked that for the sense of adventure. Either way, the choice is probably either a continuation of, or a counterpoint to, how you've lived up to this point. Even if it's just to try a new adventure, that's still a continuation of growth in your life. So there's no apology needed. There's still plenty to talk about, and you're still totally relevant.

When you become irrelevant is when you listen to your own negative self-talk and start saying things like, "I could talk about what's going on at work" — that's you creating your own irrelevance. So stop doing that. Continuing with engineering and travel as our example: even if someone's talking technical stuff, you could answer, "Yeah, I used to be a senior engineer, but later I realized I missed a lot of cultural opportunities in our designs. That's why I'm traveling now, to see how technology can be integrated with culture. And who knows? Maybe I'll write about that topic, because it's really quite fascinating." You're still growing, you're still doing things, and you may have influenced that person's thinking on the topic.

Of course, you've probably been in groups that are singularly focused on a particular outcome and have no interest in other views. That really shouldn't be news to you either. But when you listen to your negative self-talk, you say, "They aren't listening because I'm old," when the real reason is they aren't listening because they're closed-minded. And just like planting a garden, when you throw seeds in the ground, it doesn't mean flowers immediately start popping right out. These things take time, and if you're persistent and confident in your view, you may find that people start to realize your views have more relevance than they initially thought.

Here's a somewhat silly example. I've worked in industrial settings for decades, and one of the things that has always annoyed me was the needlessly stark designs of most industrial buildings, and how sometimes trivial changes can make them much more hospitable, more approachable, and just nicer to be around. Fast-forward to 2026, and in this new universal backlash against data centers — even beyond the power and water usage — a very common complaint is that the buildings look absolutely ugly. Some of my family is down in Loudoun County, Virginia, also known as Data Center Alley, and yes, those buildings look like they got their plans from the Soviet Union — these huge, monolithic, gray monstrosities. They really are unbecoming and dominating. And again, it's kind of due to short-sighted greed, because for very little cost, some of the cleverer developers are now adding touches like designs on the walls, full windows or even rear windows, more plantings, and other relatively low-cost changes — and suddenly they look more like office buildings, and people aren't complaining about the looks anymore.

Like I said, this wasn't some breakthrough design change. This is something people like me have been saying for decades, but people are starting to listen. I expect that in these companies, some of the old-timers pointed out that the purported savings from the ultra-stark designs weren't even pennies on the dollar, and with a little cleverness, one of the huge objections would just disappear. And yes, I've been involved in similar discussions, but I've been able to position my experience as a strength, not an out-of-date weakness. I was in a different industry, but I could have easily talked myself into being useless or invisible. And while the details might change, in most cases you can do the same thing in your own transition from your previous career to your next interest.

As humans, we tend to be very aware of how we're perceived, and it dates back to tribal survival — getting kicked out of the tribe usually meant not a good future for you. Plus, we're uniquely endowed with a very self-critical view of ourselves, and again, the intention is to help keep us safe. But that sometimes causes us to overlook opportunities to share knowledge, and to misinterpret how others react to us. Further, if we're feeling unconfident in ourselves, then we tend not to contribute, and we frame our knowledge as no longer relevant.

We really do tend to create our own future and our own story. If we think we're irrelevant, then we'll act that way, and then we'll feel invisible, and people will perceive us that way. If we have faith in ourselves and present new twists on our knowledge, we may be surprised at how useful some of what we know still is, even when things have changed. AI is a great example of that, but we can do an entire series on that topic — this is just an initial overview.

The point is, just because your main career may have changed in some ways, that's really a minor part of you, and you shouldn't get caught up in labels. You aren't your label. And besides, saying something unique is far more memorable than trying to make up an elevator pitch about what you aren't doing anymore. Imagine an introduction like, "I travel the world looking for ways to merge cultural preservation with job opportunities." That's really interesting. Or you could say a completely unmemorable, "I'm an investor." It's up to you to describe your own future. Do it in amazing ways.

That's it for the evening. Remember, we do have the course on the five pillars posted now, as a preview you can download. A reminder that it goes into the background of where the five pillars of life and aging came from: identity, mind, body, curiosity, and contribution. Five basic things our lives are made of, and how, as we age, we can balance and adjust those to fit our situation at the time. So check it out — the link is on the page, 7EveryMinute.com/5-pillars-freebie.

As always, remember that one of the best ways to care for yourself is to care for others. We have two sites we always talk about: UKR7.com, which links to sites that help the people of Ukraine, and WCK.org, World Central Kitchen, which works in disaster areas. Both are international sites, but local charities always need help too, and it doesn't have to be on any set date — just whenever you're able. And if you're not able to do that, something as simple as a smile can change someone else's day for the better, in ways you probably can't even imagine.

So, as always, thank you for stopping by. If you found something interesting and useful, please pass it along. Please subscribe and hit that like button. If not, please drop me a comment about what other topics you'd like to hear about. Have a great week. Remember to live the life that you dreamed of, because that's the path to true contentment. Love and encouragement to everyone. See you next week on 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com.