Our Best Mentor

On inviting our future self into the decisions that define us

When things get hard, we reach for help. We call a friend, hire a coach or book a therapist. We pay serious money to sit with a consultant and ask: what should I do?

What if the wisest mentor you will ever have is already inside you?

I am talking about your future self. The 70-year-old version of you who has already lived through the decision you are agonizing over right now. Who has already seen what the choice you are about to make leads to. Who has already made peace with the failures and enjoyed the reward of the right calls. That person exists on the other side of time. Since time is not linear, you could reach out to the 70-year-old you instantly.

Self-Help from External Perspective

We are capable of helping ourselves. We can reflect, we can journal, we can sit in silence and try to hear what is underneath the noise. In good moments, that is enough.

But there are moments when you need a voice that is not yours. Because you are too inside it and you are too close to the fear, the exhaustion, the temptation, the early rush of success that makes you want to loosen your grip. In those moments, your own voice tends to confirm what you already want to believe.

That is why we pay therapists and consultants. We need someone who can step outside our patterns and speak to us from a third-person view. Someone who sees us without being us.

Your future self can do exactly that. Better than any therapist, actually. Because the future you knows every thought you have ever had, every desire you have chased and every fear you have hidden. They know all of it. They have also lived past the decision you are standing in front of right now. They know which way it leads.

That is more than advice. It is perspective earned through time. And you have access to it anytime you want.

How to Invite Your Future Self?

Let me share a trick. This is something I actually do.

Close your eyes. Go back to a time when you were younger and struggling. Find the exact moment when you were confused, or sad, or did not know what to do next, or close to losing hope. Imagine the details of that event, where were you, who was with you, how were you feeling, as specific as possible.

Go to that place, tap on the shoulder of the younger you, then tell them what to do. Tell them it is going to be okay, or tell them to stop, or tell them to hold on just a little longer.

Maybe they will hear it, if they listen enough.

Now, still with your eyes closed, bring yourself back to the present. To the exact situation you are in right now, the one you are unsure about. And this time, instead of looking back, open a door forward. Invite the future you in. Show them the situation and just listen.

Whatever decision begins to form inside you that makes you feel most aliveness and gives you the highest energy, that is your answer. That is the future you suggesting.

Send Yourself a Message from the Future

Here is a vision I carry with me.

I am 60 years old, about to make a speech to a room full of people. Before I start, I ask them to close their eyes.

I say: travel back 20 years with me. Find Harold at 40. He is in the early years of building Vertosa and phytoRX. He is bringing water-compatible emulsion technology into an industry that is still learning to trust itself and still fighting for legitimacy. Some days the setbacks could make it feel the future is uncertain.

Now, let’s send the 40-year-old Harold a message:

Harold, stick to it. Don’t give up. What you are building is meaningful and the world is going to need it. Push through the current setbacks. Be the best of yourself and have fun!

You are not waiting for a mentor to arrive. You are the mentor. The wisest voice you will ever hear is the one that already knows how your story ends. All you have to do is get quiet enough to listen.