059 Quarterly Report

A Love Letter from My Past Self to My Future Self

Apr 01, 2025

1. Self Love (is Discipline)

As I was doing the dishes the other day, I was listening to a podcast featuring a retired military guy with a specialty in tradecraft. I have no idea what tradecraft is (although apparently it has something to do with the app Signal). But on a scale of 1 to 10 of things that are my cup of tea, this hard-core, high-stakes, macho-macho stuff scores about negative one hundred.

(Honestly, sometimes I think awful conflicts are invented just so certain people can feel like hard-core, high-stakes, macho-macho men. God help them if we all just admitted there was more than enough to go around and we spent our days being a contribution to each other, tending to our gardens, and drinking cups of tea with our neighbors.)

But to my surprise, this macho-macho man, Chase Hughes, explained self-love in such a compelling way that I put down the soapy dinner plate, wiped my hands on my trouser leg, and hit replay so I could listen to it again.

Paraphrasing, here is what he said:

When I experience something that's thanks to my past self where I say "Oh, that's awesome," I look back at myself with love and gratitude. Immediately, this means I look towards my future self with love and concern. Any concern for the present self disappears.

This hard-core man asks himself: "How can I be a butler to future me?"

This high-stakes man loves vision boards. Because you can see your goals "in a way even your dog could understand."

This macho-macho man leaves love notes to "future me", and sometimes even cash, in his winter coat pockets so he can find them later and surprise and delight himself.

What a dreamboat.

My self loving, disciplined, strength training crew.

2. Discipline (is Self Love)

I love Hughes' relationship to discipline because it resonates so much with my ideas around Creative Civility. That is, discipline can be joyfully disruptive of our default modes via the delights and gifts left to us by our past selves.

The gateway into this kind of wonder-filled time-traveling love-relationship with self though, is discipline. It starts with the groan-worthy stuff we've all heard before about delayed gratification. Hughes defines it:

Discipline is your ability to prioritize the needs of your future self over your present self.

But, but, but. We can start small and we can start delightfully. We can start by asking ourselves as Chase does: how can we be a butler to future me?

For Hughes this involves laying out all his clothes the night before and having everything he needs for the day packed and ready by the front door. It means having his disposable coffee pod thingo ready in the gaping mouth of one of those fandangled plastic coffee machines. (I prefer a stovetop espresso maker but no shade. Okay, a little bit of shade.) This is enough for Hughes to gasp to his past self "Oh, that's awesome!"

For me, and this will surprise nobody, setting up delight for "future me" involves a bit more of a sparkly inner child vibe:

A star chart on the side of the fridge. Because I really resist going to the gym, for example, I log $2 every time I go which I can spend on eBay when I've accumulated enough.
Band t-shirts to wear to the gym with some of my senior heroes on them (aka ladies who definitely strength trained: Cyndi Lauper, RBG, et al.), and
Splashes of neon green to my work out gear channeling my younger hero, (2019 Billie Eilish) as if to say I can be a rebel who also meets my rock star responsibilities.

The reason that these delightful things can be so powerful is that overtime one develops a taste for the dopamine that comes from the past self (tallying up the week's $-amount on said star chart), and a distaste for present self dopamine sources that often harm one's future self (scrolling social media and eating sugar).

Discipline is your past self writing a love letter to your future self. And your present self gets to identify as an absolute badass.

3. Quarterly Report

Update 1: I am a ghost writer!

Without a doubt, one of the most wonderful things this past quarter has been having incredibly rich conversations with a founder as they build something extraordinary. Then turning those conversations into pieces of writing.

Founders are one of my absolute favorite things in the world: pragmatic visionaries. Having complaints about the state of the world and knowing what should be done is easy. Delivering on those ideas, on the other hand, is so freaking hard that few people even try.

Update 2: Upcoming Programs

I have some big upcoming workshops serving 50 to 100 people each:

I'm delivering the Me Manual workshop for Family Therapists and credible messengers inside the Foster Care System.
I've created a specially designed workshop called "Expanding Our Frame" for the School of Design at Pratt Institute.
Plus, I am a facilitator supporting Tythe Design’s public Fair Housing Workshops being held across the city.

Update 3: Completed Programs

I have completed three program series this past quarter:

Power Mapping - The year started with an incredible group of people joining my program to make things happen in reality across an 8-week sprint. It involved magic.
I led an 8-week storytelling program.
My neighborhood Artist Way series completed. It was such a wonderful and nourishing way to regularly connect with my local community and I highly recommend starting one of your own.

Ways To Work With Me

🎤 Invite me to speak on Creative Civility
🌱 Bring the Me Manual Workshop to your team - a thoughtful approach to burnout and vicarious trauma that your people will actually love