Some of you may already be familiar with Victor Frankl and I have mentioned him in previous podcast episodes. He was a Holocaust survivor, including time spent at the prison camp at Auschwitz. Here's what he said: "It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future sub specie aeternitatis", which means it's an expression that describes what's universally and eternally true. So he's saying it's a peculiarity of man, that we can only live by looking to the future in a way that's universally and eternally true. And then he continues, "…and this is his salvation in the most difficult moments of his existence. The prisoner who had lost faith in the future—his future—was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold. He let himself decline and become subject to mental and physical decay. His faith in the future and his will to live had become paralyzed and his body fell victim to illness." Remember, this is from a man in a concentration camp, or at least describing the experience he had in a concentration camp.  

We can cultivate faith in others, and in our own futures, or lower our expectations in both cases. Whichever one we do will result in that thing that we expected. Our expectations control our future. Don't argue with me. I know what I'm talking about. I can just picture somebody right now saying, "Well, yeah, but that's an over…" No, it's not really an oversimplification. We can go through it in greater detail and we can have a much longer podcast episode. But generally speaking, and powerfully speaking, our beliefs about our future and about ourselves will manifest themselves.  

So what do you do if you're in a situation where you want to ensure your own success? What if you want to make sure that the future is something that you can look forward to, not something you should dread? In this episode, I give you some suggestions that will prove helpful.