This one was supposed to be about marketing. It's not. I went down a hole researching fear, came out the other side with something better, and I'm doing the whole episode backwards — giving you the answer first, then spending the rest proving I'm not mad.

The answer: my mentor is me. Not me now. Future me. The man I want to become. I've made him real, and now when I'm scared, or bored, or stuck, I ask him what to do.

I take Simon Sinek's "Start With Why" and flip it to "Start With Me." I dig into the science of why the future versions of us run the show whether we build them on purpose or not. I steal a one-question decision filter off a Formula One legend. I'm honest about exactly where the proven science stops and where I start making it up. And I give my own eulogy, out loud, which was harder than I expected.

No fluff. No hacks. Just the research, an honest experiment I'm running on my own life, and a promise to report back on whether it actually works.

This is me learning in real time. If you get one thing out of it, that's the win.

Pull up a chair.

— What we cover — Simon Sinek and the Golden Circle (and why I'm flipping it) "Possible Selves" — the 40-year-old science of your future self Why the gap between who you are and who you want to be is the fuel, not the problem How you act your way into an identity, not think your way into it Frank Williams' one-question filter: "Will it make the car go faster?" Where the real science stops and Colin starts guessing Your own eulogy — the Michael Gerber exercise, flipped Four things you can actually do Monday morning

— The research, the people, the receipts —

Simon Sinek, Start With Why / The Golden Circle https://simonsinek.com/golden-circle

Markus, H. & Nurius, P. (1986), "Possible Selves," American Psychologist https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0003-066X.41.9.954

Higgins, E. T. (1987), Self-Discrepancy Theory https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1987-34444-001

Daryl Bem, Self-Perception Theory https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guide/psychology/self-perception-theory

James Clear, Atomic Habits — Identity-Based Habits https://jamesclear.com/identity-based-habits

Frank Williams, "Will it make the car go faster?" — from Performance at the Limit (Jenkins, Pasternak & West) https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/performance-at-the-limit/enabling-leadership/39CD695E0D36DCE344869A7C077397D2

Michael E. Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited — the funeral / Primary Aim exercise https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/79122-the-e-myth-revisited-why-most-small-businesses-don-t-work-and-what-to-d

Benjamin Hardy, Be Your Future Self Now (the closest thing to what I'm doing) https://www.amazon.com/Your-Future-Self-Now-Transformation/dp/1401967574