00:00:00 Sana: Listeners, what do you think? Were. Or are our bodies, um, ready for and our minds ready or built for the pace of change which is happening right now? Do you think? I feel like I don't think so because, you know, we have new technologies, constant uncertainty right now, a world that keeps moving faster than our biology has time to even catch up with.

00:00:37 Sana: And so many of us feel that result, that result of mismatch or becoming irrelevant, becoming, I don't know, I mean like stress, anxiety or a quiet, constant Orwell constant Orwell that we cannot fully explain. And then, you know, we have so many videos, you know, or, or maybe you just start scrolling and see, okay, what, what exactly is new? This is not going to work. Uh, what? You knew it's not going, not going to work. You have to learn a new way. And then you start to feel like, leave everything. I just do not want to think about it. Let me be behind. But then you get into that fight or flight mode and then you start thinking, I have to, I have to go ahead. But then how to do that? Well, that's what we are going to talk in today's episode. What to do actually with that. But before we get started with our main discussion, and I introduce my guest to all of you.

00:01:49 Sana: Welcome back to the Mindful Living. I am Sana, and yes, I'm sitting with someone today who is an osteopath specializing in stress related conditions with a private practice in Brussels, Belgium. He is the founder of the Reset Approach, the author of Futurize Yourself and the Future's Effect. And he also. He also, under the alias of fitful, creates inspirational AI generated music. So let's get started and let's welcome Tom Myers. Tom, welcome to the Mindful Living. And it's such a joy having you here.

00:02:28 Tom Meyers: Thank you very much. And let's have a great conversation about all of that day of not copy pasting our past into the future and about, you know, not letting the future overwhelm us, uh, but creating it on purpose and making sure that we are able to flourish and thrive in it. But by the choices, decisions, and actions we make today, because that is, you know, what we need to do. But how do we do that? I hope we can clarify that together today.

00:03:02 Sana: Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, Tom, before we get into the main discussion, um, we'll start with your story. Uh, because you have said that you were considered good for nothing and your first business failed taking you down with it. So if it is okay with you, please tell us your story.

00:03:25 Tom Meyers: Yeah. Um, as many people struggle today and trying to find a way out. Well, I went through that twenty six years ago. You have to know that I'm actually trained as a chef. Cuisine? Uh, yeah. That nothing to do with health, well-being, and futures thinking. Uh, and that my first job was in catering as a waiter in a hotel in England, and I also ended up working on a cruise ship as a waiter. A sommelier did some trips around the world, backpacking, uh, in the nineteen nineties. Uh, so when I finished my studies as a chef and starting the deli that you mentioned, that failed, let's say these, the eight years were wandering years where I was just experiencing the world, but also escaping from a sort of reality of from the problems that I had here in Belgium. You know, I don't everybody has their issues. But, you know, you, you, you have your parental issues, you have your educational issues. And for me, you know, that created a sort of yeah, a mindset that, uh, indeed, you know, I didn't really have to show anything. Great. Yeah. I was not the best student, so my dad could not be proud of me. So he told me at a moment of frustration and that he, uh, you know, that I didn't have great points and that it couldn't be proud to his colleagues. And, you know, also an ounce I heard her say once, you know, he will never make it. So as a kid, you, you, you start, you know, that's imprinted in you somehow. And then after eight years of traveling around the world working and really like a wandering, oh, that looks nice. Let's go there. Oh, that looks nice. Let's go there. I ended up back into Belgium not knowing what to do. And it was a friend of mine that in those eight years, I've set up a successful business and wanted to expand in a franchise system and call me and told me that, you know, if I wanted to do that. And I suddenly thought, wow, you know, here, my friend, we had the same education. They were going to help me do a place. And I was looking for, oh, he has a nice car. He has a nice house, he has his wife, he has a kid, he has his team in the world. And what I have, I have nothing. So I'm, you know, I'm gonna get all of that handed to me on a plate. And that is how I got into, uh, opening a deli. But two months later, I experienced already like a suicidal depression. So it was like the suicidal thoughts from my youth, you know, just boosted up, you know, everything that I had left behind, I thought just came back with a vengeance and much more, um, you know, expand it. And so the issue was that being used to traveling around the world to be wandering, now you're cooped up in between four walls and you have to wait for clients to come to you. Uh, so you have to wait and, and okay, there were not enough clients coming, and I never even thought about the future that, you know, a business you have to build up. You have to, you know, wait a couple of years. I thought I was going to have instant success. I was very naive at the time. And, um, yeah, that turned out that, you know, I got imprisoned. That's how it felt like and did not know how, you know, a way out of that until, uh, a, a neighboring pharmacist who had been talking about my issues that, uh, she came in one day with a piece of paper and a number, and it was a psycho consultant, like a life coach. Uh, but at the time we're talking here, two thousand, you know, you went to the psychologist or the psychiatrist, and that had been not successful for my mother. Um, but so what you know, and I didn't consider myself sick also, if I could not help myself, nobody could, you know, that was the mindset that I had. And that is, you know, the, that is the, the time that this, this, this name and this number for me, I rejected it at first, but then, uh, I was desperate. And a month later I was sitting behind this, uh, life coach and this psycho psycho Astro Consultants desk. And that's where life took another turn in the sense that she gave. She never told me about the future. She never gave me answers to questions I had no. It was the inverse. She gave me questions that I needed to answer. And because then, you know, you, you. And that was also a mindset, I suppose, that, you know, getting help was she will give you the answers, but no, but a good coach gets the answers out of you through questioning. And that is how I found out that, uh, uh, through her coaching, because essentially what it is, is finding my potential. Uh, it's like, you know, there was a conflict. One part of me was going in one way and another part of me was going into another way. And so that was the time, I call it, when consciousness knocked on. It's like my soul knocked on consciousness door saying, wake up. You know, there is another path for you. And that's how, you know, through her coaching and it's all written in the book featurize yourself, um, which is actually coming out again in the fourteenth of September, uh, because I re-edited it and remastered it. And so it's a great, um, I know it's a very different than the first issue. And it's only available for one dollar the e-book by doing one dollar e-book. Okay. Um, in preorder and because I want to share that with as many people as possible, but the finding was that I was a therapist, a communicator, a teacher, a researcher, and a traveler. That was the essence of what I was born with.

00:10:51 Speaker 4: And what was I doing in this shop? Selling chalk and cheese?

00:10:55 Tom Meyers: If I was a born therapist and a researcher.

00:10:58 Speaker 4: And a teacher.

00:11:01 Tom Meyers: You understand. So. And that's the message I want also to share with your audience. It's like, where does it start? It starts with getting to know yourself and you have books for that with some information how to do that. But some people like myself, I needed help. You know, we need other people to, you know, you know, that just trigger us to get the best out of us. And that's their potential, right? That's so, you know, you're using their potential and it's like a plumber. I can't do plumbing to save my life, you know? So I need a plumber, you know? So yeah, that's my a little bit of my backstory.

00:11:53 Sana: I, I, I don't know, you mentioned that, before we hit the recording that, um, it would take maybe, you know, a lot longer because, there's a, there's a lot. And, and I can imagine it's, there's a lot and you mentioned about two thousand. So it's like two decades, more than two decades back almost, almost thirty years back. Um, one thing which I kind of, find it very striking. And I think, um, I kind of personally resonate with it is, um, I don't know. Um, I've always been wondering that, uh, and I think this is one of the biggest taboo that, asking for help is only for the people who are, who are weak or, they may be they are incapable. You have to always figure it out yourself. Fine. I do understand, you know. But I think, there's a there's a big nuance to it. And you gave a perfect example because this is what exactly happened a few days back with me. Now I love to because I don't know, maybe it's my ego that, even I've done my engineering, I do not, uh, very well know how to figure out the, the wiring or the connections. I've, I've tried a lot. Sometimes it worked. That gave me the confidence and the boost. So the next time when I did it, I failed. The next time also I failed. I had to call an electrician because I know that they are the ones who are skilled, they are trained and they get paid for that. Now similarly, um, I knew how to use a plier or maybe, just, you know, clean or wash the tap, but, uh, to repair something which is beyond my, uh, field of understanding how the plumbing works. I couldn't do it. I had to call up Nabil. Uh, which is something to opposite what I personally, uh, was made to believe that, you know, uh, you should always look out for solutions. And I think in hindsight, even asking for help when you from the inside, you are aware that without maybe, you know, um, the help of a life coach or maybe, uh, without the help of, uh, a particular book or a technique or a framework, which you deep down know, intrinsically know that it is going to, it is, it is for you. This is what exactly you need. You know that you know that calling because you intuitively feel that calling, uh, that itself is, you know, you are helping yourself. So I think, you know, there's a kind of, you know, very, uh, maybe it's a cultural issue or maybe it's how our brains are made or, I don't know, maybe it's irrational.

00:14:55 Speaker 5: Yeah, it's certainly not. It's definitely not cultural. We have that same thing.

00:14:58 Tom Meyers: You know, we, we are from different cultures. So I think it's very human. And, um, you know, when people are listening to this, there is a sort of serendipitous in the air. So they hear about this book, uh, one dollar and then, you know, they also have to think about, you know, oh, maybe because I hear that this is for me, uh, that is one thing, but also, um, but I wanted to say it's like many business people, let's say all business people have coaches, right? Not necessarily because they have problems, but they want to get better, right? So, you know, so the, the people that feel like, you know, I know coaching is not for me. Well, if you look at businesses to advance in life, to advance and to be more attuned with the future, they have business coaches or their person and for their business, right? They get the experts in to make sure that they futurize themselves that, you know, the pressurized, the business and the person. Right. So, and I think people are need to understand that also with these examples that we are giving that it's okay and it's not a failure and it's actually a strength to, you know, even in the good times to get assistance, to get help to the next level. Well, or if you are safe, you know, here I'm stuck. It's okay. You know, that's, that's what humanity is all about. We are together. You know, we are one crew on planet earth that is moving around hundreds, thousands of kilometers an hour through space. And we have all potential. We are all have this unique set. And why do you think that is? It's because together we form an organism that works like a body. And I always say, you know, my body is made of trillions of cells working together to be me. Now, maybe we ourselves in a bigger body that is, you know, our earth, you know, as an organism. But and if we. And that is also the issue that I've learned from this is that if we try to be somebody we are not, if we are going to venture into doing something that's not part of our potential, how can we feel in our elements. How can we feel that we are one and that, you know, how can you create fulfillment or some kind of contentment in something you're not? And this is why it's so important, especially in this fast changing world, is to find who you are first, because that does not alter over time. And this is the important part. We're looking too much at what changes and not at what not changes, and so does I use it specifically. The wording does not alter because does not alter is an act. You know the acronym is DNA.

00:18:20 Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:18:21 Tom Meyers: DNA find your DNA, find your DNA. That is that can be expressed in different ways. Every business has a DNA, every business has a scenario of the future is based on that DNA. Everybody. Every business has a preferred future goal. But what about us? What about people? As a individual, as a society, we have no you know, we have no knowledge of our DNA. And, you know, I don't mean the biological DNA, but really who we are and and what is our you know, what do we want to feel? What are our aspirations? What is our potential? And to, to see from. Okay, but what can that become us in, in ten years time? That's about as you know, because if you need to do some changes, it needs to have a ten year perspective. So it can then you have directions for your choices, your decisions, your actions. Now it's all random. Now today, you know, technology is the point and people are the means and the planet earth will whatever. But sorry, you know, technology is the means. People are the point. And the planet without a healthy planet are we're nothing. And so and I'm trying to shift that, that idea, that mindset that that it starts with you and saying from, okay, who am I? What is again, the three elements of a DNA is what do you want to feel? I want to feel content fulfilled and healthy. Do you really think I don't want to feel content fulfilled and healthy when I'm ninety, one hundred, one hundred and twenty or whatever we are with age, we are going to reach in this fast changing world. And my aspirations is good, resilient, Evolvable actionable, transcendent, which is an acronym for great, great future, i.e. life because life is in the future, right? And my potential. So these are the subjective experiences that I want you to think about and make your own. And, and your potential is what you're born with and that you also die with, and that you can develop over time and what you're made for. And there is ways to finding that potential. Again, in the book, it's described how I found it and how you can find it. There is like, you know, the first part of the book is about my story and then it's yours. Create your story with the information. And once you have that, then you can start imagining, you know, what could this be like in the future, no matter how that future changes? And then you can also start, okay. But then if this, then that scenario. And so today, so we give an example. I'm a therapist expressed as an osteopath. Well, will I be always I won't maybe be always an osteopath, but I will always be a therapist. So maybe when I'm in a retirement home and I'm listening to the nurses there and their complaints. I'm still a therapist because they will find me. All my life people have found me to tell me about their problems and I've listened. Well, I'm seeing that at ninety or one hundred in a retirement home. That's probably what I'm what is going to happen. You see, so I'm wanting people to go back to the basics. Yes. But then not from how it was, but how it is today and how it's going to be useful for tomorrow. Because you said as well in the beginning, copy pasting doesn't work anymore.

00:22:10 Sana: It doesn't doesn't. I think what you're pointing at, Tom, is. You know exactly. Of course, DNA or more like of, you know, it's an archetype for, for example, um, I love to, uh, you know, help, guide or mentor or I also love to translate, uh, because it's not that, I am very much skilled in understanding technology, but at least to whatever extent a normal, just an average Joe who doesn't have any, um, fundamental idea about how a technology works. I can at least translate that so I can become that, you know, intermediate between technology and humans. I can translate that in better, um, in language communication. So I believe it comes naturally to me. Give me any scenario, at least that part will come naturally to me. So that's like my DNA. I feel that content contentment or that fulfillment, you know, when I do that, um, and I find my mojo or that strength in that, you know, I feel like the most powerful person in the world when I do that. It's like I lose my sense of time and space or what is happening, just, you know, how the best, uh, way possible I can keep that or do that in for, for, for the people, uh, with me. So I think that's what you're trying to point to point out here. And irrespective of how the future, maybe you are thinking or you are seeing, or maybe, you know, others are telling you, but at least you are aware that this is what is with you and this is what nothing or no one can take away from you.

00:24:12 Speaker 6: Yeah. And that archetype.

00:24:14 Tom Meyers: Is the word that I use as well. So I find this archetype. Yes, the archetypes, uh, and I listed the I list that in my, you know, few archetypes in the book as well, just to give you some examples, but, um, because the archetype is so fundamental, it is. Um, but but for example, you know, how does this relate to business as well? Like Jeff Bezos in one of the interviews he had, he said from, you know, people ask me what is going to change in the next ten years? But the better question is, what doesn't? Because on that, you can build. Right. And for example, um, shopping. That's the archetype, you know, but we can change how we shop, right? That is Amazon. Right. Um, reading as the archetype, uh, how we read and how are we going to read? Uh, that can change in the law, right? So from physical books to Kindle books to, you know, there's many more ways that books can be read or experienced today. And so, but every business that he starts or wants to take over, he will see from what's the archetype? Is it a. You see. So everything. Um, so now he is interested in buying some English football team apparently. And so again, you know, but football, it's always been there and it's always going to be there. Right. And so yeah football. But how are we going to play and where are we going to play and how that is going to be expressed. Well that probably will change. It's it's changed now since in the last fifty years football has changed. Right. So you see it's such a clever thing to do. And when I read when I saw that interview, I said, this is exactly what I've been doing with myself. So we can, you know, we, we are the business. So yeah. And you know, and also, you know, you said something about the body in the beginning as well. And that's, that's that other part of me. And I say from, okay, but, you know, take care of your body because, you know, that's where all this conservation has to go through right now.

00:26:30 Speaker 7: Of course, of course, that is non-negotiable.

00:26:33 Sana: That is non-negotiable. But but but this is a very interesting, uh, one, um, especially from a business perspective as well. But then I do not want to go to the business side because, you know, we are on the mindful living and it's more about, uh, anything else but business. Um, and, uh, although although we are short of time, but then Tom, I also want to ask, just to understand from you, um, let's say, let's say someone who is genuinely feeling genuinely overwhelmed by how fast everything is changing around them right now. Um, okay. And, and, you know, I think, uh, it's a very natural response, but, and it is, you know, guilty as charged. I'm not the best person to embrace change immediately. I go into either a freezing mode. This is natural. You know, it happens and or I get into a denial mode, and I have been called out by a few of my friends, um, who I, whom I feel, you know, they're, they're this, you know, a type personality and, and they, they love competition or they love that super fast. You know, I don't know, it's a very different kind of approach. They have, I have a, I have a bit of a different approach. I, um, like to make things more clearer and, you know, maybe I, I do like the stability part here, uh, which is contrary to what, you know, the entire, you know, concept of this conversation is about, but then, uh, someone who is feeling this overwhelm, they are in that denial mode or they are completely just frozen. They're not able to figure out what to do, what to do next. term. Um, what is the first step? First step toward future izing themselves that they could actually begin this week?

00:28:37 Speaker 5: Well.

00:28:38 Tom Meyers: There is always as the first question I got from, uh, the psycho astro consultant was, what are you doing here? Right. That was the first question I got. And I'm going that is what I call the the introspection. It's always important to walk the question of what is going on. Exactly right. So what is the conflict? What is the mismatch that I'm struggling with and what do I want? Instead, we think we need to have both. We sometimes easily find from what we don't want. but rarely what we think about what we want. Even if my patients here in my practice, you know, I ask them what you know, what do you want? And they say, I don't want this. I don't want to feel this pain. I say, no, no, no, that's not what I asked. What do you want? The first question is always the baseline. What is it? You know, what is the conflict, the real conflict. Think about it. And what do you want instead? Right. So as I said before, you know the mismatch, one part of me is going into one direction. The other part is going to me another direction, and I want to have harmony. Okay. So be clear about that and then think back. It's about the retrospection. How did I get here into this situation? Right. So it's also about finding those limiting beliefs, the metaphors that are not helping you. AM I copying pasting the past to the future because I know this is what I've always done, and that is what humanity always has done. But this doesn't work anymore. So be clear about these things, right? Um, even though, you know, a book can explain everything I sometimes say to from if you think this is what you need, take the book and go to a coach and say from, can you do this with me? Right. And also because, you know, even coaches need coaching and even coaches are trained with experiences from the past, right? So also osteopathy and manual therapy today is based on nineteen twentieth century techniques for the problems of their time. And the problems of today are very different. Right? So we have to shift and we have to also say to the coaches and say to the osteopaths and the manual therapists. This is what I do say from coming to the twenty first century. Please. Okay, so this is important, but I would say that is step one. But if I may, there is step zero before one. How can you even stop and think about the future if you're in a stress response, if you're in that freeze mode, as you were saying, you know, your freeze mode doesn't only changes your physical tension, your heart rate, your breath rate, your digestion, your immune inflammatory system, but it also changes the way you think through vascular changes. And so to be able to clearly think, well, a stress mode will take away energy from the brain where you actually can't think, where you can have time perspective, where you can rationalize, and even a part of your brain called the hippocampus memory. So these parts are undernourished and so less active and other parts distress response, anxiety. The fear parts of your brain are over nourished and are overactive. So if those are overactive, how can you stop and think? How can you if it's overactive and fixed? So in a in a autonomic lesion that's the chronic stress has set in. Then of course, then you will try to do some meditation, some mindfulness, but you feel more anxious afterwards. Of course, you feel anxious afterwards because your body says fight and flight and you're going to say, um, and your body. And really it's like the inner side said, don't do that. Don't do that. Run. And so this is then also, uh, where help is needed. And this is where the, you know, the reset, uh, integrated manual therapists that are there are a lot of them in India, uh, all around the country now, uh, do and deal with, but it's finding a way to get your body in a EAS state. And that is, I'm not saying the mind, right? The mind follows the body. Yeah. And this is, you know, so there is step one that is from where I'm, you know, what is the conflict and what do I want that is so important. But also in that conflict, it's about, you know, is my body in a state of stress that also creates that I can't think and me feel more fearful about everything that's new because everything that's new, everything that's, you know, unsure is a stressor, right? Because we are used from a biological perspective, from a software perspective, that tomorrow, the day after in one hundred years is the same as yesterday and today. Tomorrow is not like yesterday. So we're struggling what is called an evolutionary mismatch between biology and culture, which our body stress response is just becoming overactive. And then it changes the way you think. And then mindful living. Yes, you can, you know, you can mindful living, but the body needs to be at ease before mindful living can take, can take, uh, you know, you know, can take room over there. It can actually be expressed. So yeah, it's a complicated question that you're asking. So I just want to clarify that because many people say, okay, I'm going to do that and then feel stuck and then they feel more anxious.

00:35:16 Sana: Yeah. It is, it is. But I think it's that doesn't mean that it's not possible. It is possible. Um, and I think that itself is something that, I think sometimes we need to really, if, we feel like, okay, I am able to do this. We, we need those, you know, uh, like we need to pat ourselves, you know, uh, back and maybe acknowledge or, you know, celebrate those mini small wins that, uh, can cascade and, you know, become bigger wins. Um, because ultimately, you know, we, we know, we know our end goal. This is our goal. But then the path that is something I, I believe we do have that choice to. And, and, you know, we should always, um, we do have that choice to, uh, visualize or think, you know, what, what all we need to make sure that we're able to see that path and we are able to follow that path towards that end goal.

00:36:23 Speaker 6: Um, yeah, it's the perspective we are, we.

00:36:28 Tom Meyers: You know, the perspective counts and the perspective is what we can change. It's us. We decide to perspective. But of course, if you're in a stress response, that perspective is colored.

00:36:44 Sana: Okay. Wow. Uh, Tom, I think this was a very, very, um, very interesting, very interesting conversation. I really, really, I was kind of, first of all, completely engrossed because the way you explained this, um, you know, I think, uh, we would probably imagine that in a lot of jargons or technical words and this and that, just to make it sound more complex or, you know, more. Yeah. The scientific or medical. That's why it sounds complicated, but it doesn't have to be complicated. So I really, really appreciate applaud you for making it simple, understandable, approachable and no fear mongering. Just, you know, simple. What is it, what to do and what not to do as well. Thank you so much.

00:37:38 Tom Meyers: You're very welcome. And yeah, I'm and to see my journey as a as a story of yes, it's possible. I'm, I'm not more than anybody else I have you know, a background is, you know, scientists in my background, there is no healers in my background. There is no rich people in my background, on the contrary. So, you know, but the the coach told me, it's up to you, Tom. And, you know, and you know, and think it's. At one stage, she said. Also a little bit from me, a bit more selfish. Tom. And I didn't understand that in the beginning, but at the end it's that selfishness is in the sense of, you know, think about yourself because if you take care of yourself, like mind your body before your body reminds you when you start being more in your element, that is how you change the world. And that is affects the people around you. And so instead of taking care of the world, I took care of myself. And I, you know, and that rebounded into taking care of the world in, in, in my own niche, in my own space and so forth. So, um, that's a message I think also for many people, and especially culturally, uh, okay, there are, you know, there is a framework in which we need to work, of course. Um, but do do take care of yourself, you know. Or and and in my second book, the features effect, I say change your story. So the perspective change your future. So your it's your and our future. And so you change your story, you change your and our future.

00:39:38 Sana: Wow.

00:39:40 Tom Meyers: Because of the, the connections we have immediately with other people. Always.

00:39:46 Sana: Absolutely. No, I think, uh, it's it's beautifully put and it's reassuring. And it is healing as well. Um, and, uh, of course, you know, from our listeners will be now curious to get a hold of your books, explore more about the futures effect and reset approach. You know, maybe they have their fair share of experiences or maybe their opinions, you know, to share with you. So how they can do all of that?

00:40:15 Tom Meyers: Yeah, they well, they go to future yourself dot com. Uh, if you're, but it's on every single Amazon, right? You know, like the Amazon India, the book is for one hundred one hundred rupees. I think it's the e-book. So, uh, you know, it's what future yourself dot com is the place where you find more about me books and, you know, information just to inspire you hopefully to lead, uh, you know, to flourish and thrive in this fast changing world.

00:40:49 Sana: So books. Wow. Uh, so listeners, I'll have all the links mentioned in the show notes. So I urge, I invite all of you to check out Tom Meyer's book, future as yourself. and, find all the details attached along with this episode. Uh, but thank you so much once again, Tom. Um, this was a very hopeful and practical conversation.

00:41:12 Tom Meyers: Thank you very much for inviting me to mindful living and have a great future. All of you.

00:41:22 Sana: Oh my beautiful. That was beautiful. And to all the listeners, yes, have a let's have a great, great future. Um, and, and if this conversation will feel that you got some value from this, um, do share this episode with everyone, anyone around you possible. Um, and also do follow the mindful living podcast so that this podcast and the episode will reach out to more and more people out there. You can follow the podcast on all the platforms possible, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you are tuning in. And thank you so much for tuning in. But I'm Sana and I'll be back soon with another episode. Thank you so much.