E753 | What Would Your 8-Year-Old Self Think Of Your Life?

Reflecting on Your Life Through the Eyes of Your Younger Self

In this thought-provoking reflection, Doc Danny explores the transformative power of self-reflection by looking at our current lives through the lens of our younger selves. Inspired by the film The Kid, featuring Bruce Willis, he dives deep into the expectations and dreams we held as children and how confronting those early ideals can reveal where we are now.

How Would Your 8-Year-Old Self View Your Life Today?

Doc Danny asks a simple yet profound question: How would your 8-year-old self perceive your current reality? This question, while straightforward, can uncover hidden truths about our life paths. Most people fall into one of two camps: those who feel proud and excited about their lives and those who feel they have settled, weighed down by regrets and unfulfilled dreams.

For many adults, this self-assessment can be a wake-up call. Doc Danny emphasizes that those who feel they’ve "settled" often played it safe, avoiding the risks and passions they dreamed of as children. He encourages readers to reflect on this and consider the areas in their lives where they may have compromised on their true desires.

Looking Ahead: The 70-Year-Old Self Perspective

Doc Danny takes this reflection a step further by urging us to consider how our 70-year-old selves would evaluate our current lives. This perspective shift can be a powerful tool to illuminate areas where we need to make changes. What would our future selves be proud of? What would they wish we had done differently?

By thinking from this long-term perspective, we can identify what truly matters and make decisions that align with our authentic selves. It’s about stepping off autopilot and living more intentionally.

Embracing Change and Overcoming Fear

Changing the course of our lives is not easy. Doc Danny openly acknowledges the fears and insecurities that accompany personal growth. Starting small is key—addressing the easiest changes first and gradually building the confidence to tackle bigger challenges. He points out that entrepreneurship and business endeavors can be incredible vehicles for self-discovery and transformation.

The idea isn’t to overhaul your life overnight but to begin making small, consistent steps that lead to more fulfilling outcomes. The fear of change is natural, but staying in a place of complacency can lead to a life of regret.

Living Intentionally

Doc Danny’s message is clear: life is too precious to live on autopilot. Every day presents an opportunity to make choices that align with who we truly are and who we want to become. By embracing the insights of our younger and future selves, we can cultivate a life filled with pride, excitement, and purpose.

So, take a moment today. Reflect on your life through the eyes of your younger self. What would they think of your journey? More importantly, what can you do today to ensure that your future self looks back with pride and fulfillment? Change starts with the smallest of steps. Begin yours now.

 Do you enjoy the podcast?  If so, leave us a 5-star review on iTunes and tell a friend to do the same!

Are you a member of our free PT Entrepreneur Facebook Group? Join today!

Ready to elevate your practice? Book a call at the link below with one of our expert consultants today and start your journey to delivering unparalleled physical therapy.

Podcast Transcript

Danny:  If you look at it from the perspective of where you're at now, and what, if you met your future self, what would make you so excited you would puke? You can start to make those changes now. So maybe it is taking a risk on yourself. Maybe it is having difficult conversation with somebody that you've been avoiding.

Maybe it is, trending a different direction. Hey, are you a physical therapist looking to leverage your skill set in a way that helps you create time and financial freedom for yourself and your family? If so, you're in the right spot. My name is Danny Matta and over the last 15 years I've done pretty much everything you can in the profession.

I've been a staff PT I've been an active duty military officer physical therapist I've started my own cash practice. I've sold that cash practice and today my company physical therapy business helped over a thousand clinicians start growing scale their own cash practices. So if this sounds like something you want to do, listen up because I'm here to help you.

Hey, what's going on? Dr. Danny here with the PT on tour podcast. And today. I'm here. This is another little sort of lesson learned for me. Hopefully you like these because I try to share, things from my life that I find impactful that hopefully you can use to, view things a little differently or different perspective on something.

And I recently was watching a movie with my kids. My wife actually picked it out. It's called the kid and it has Bruce Willis and it's a Disney movie and it said it was a comedy. I don't think this was a comedy. It was actually like pretty heavy movie for my kids and the premise of it is this so Bruce Willis, I don't even know how this happens.

Basically, he starts having these headaches and he starts seeing this kid around Spoiler alert, I'm gonna spoil some of this movie. Sorry if you've already seen it. No worries, but if not It's still worth watching. So anyway, he sees this little kid and it turns out it's like his eight year old self So he's got to come to terms with some stuff.

He has to learn from his eight year old

There's one section of the movie, there's one scene where they're realizing that they're like an older and a younger version of each other. So the younger one is asking Bruce Willis questions about his life. And Bruce Willis is like this big hotshot consultant makes a bunch of money, but he's really an asshole.

And he goes, he's asking all these questions and he goes, let me get this straight. I'm about to turn 40. I don't, I'm not married. I don't even have a girlfriend, I, and I don't even have a dog. And he goes, I've grown up to become a loser. And he just falls dramatically on the couch.

And starts like, I don't know, lamenting that his life turns into this. And I thought it was really funny that scene was funny because Bruce Willis, in his mind, he's I'm this big hotshot and his eight year old self is thinking to himself, man, my life sucks. This is what I have to look forward to.

That sucks. So I thought for a second. This is actually a question I've been asking friends of mine, I thought it was funny, is what would an eight year old version of myself think about my current life? Like the life that I've lived, the place that I am currently, because I'm about turn 40.

It's very actually similar to age, to the guy in the movie. But I turned 40 a couple months in and I thought about it and I was like, man, honestly, I think my eight year old self would, my eight year old self wanted to be a professional baseball player or in the special forces. And I didn't, I did neither of those two things.

So maybe my eight year old self would be like, dang we didn't do what we thought we were going to do. But I think that they would be pretty happy with where I'm at. I think generally they would be like, man, my life's awesome. And I'm excited that. That I get to end up being there one day because I think I've got to a point where I feel very happy about where I'm at.

And in particular, the fact that I get to help so many people and have done in different ways between being a clinician and being a, helping people on the business side that are clinicians, it's, I get to do a lot of meaningful work, which is awesome. And, I have a lot of fun with people around me and I have friends and have good health and have a really, amazing family.

And generally I feel like. That question when I asked myself that was generally a really positive response and I'm not putting this out there just so you can hear me talk about my response to this question because you really, I think you have to ask yourself, how would your eight year old self feel about where you're at right now?

Would they be excited or would they be bummed out? How would they look at you? And the reason I think that's interesting, the reason that I found it fascinating, the reason I've asked so many people this question, it's interesting. Like some people get really Sad when you ask them because they have not done many of the things that they would hope they had hoped that they would have been able to do.

They really, from what I've seen people that do not respond well to this question, they have a lot of regrets or they played it really safe and they never really took a chance on something that was meaningful to them. And in many cases, and they've found themselves living a life.

That's just, they have to at this point. And they have too many responsibilities to make a change quickly. When I, as I've asked people this and some people have been like, dude, my eight year old self would be so excited. They would puke. I think that's what you have to ask yourself is okay, how would my eight year old self feel about where I am right now?

And then the other question you can ask yourself is how would my 70 year old self feel about where or how would I feel if I met my 70 year old self? What would be a home run if I met that person? What would their life look like? What would the things be that they've accomplished?

What would, what, what would overall things look like for them in all these different aspects and start to change things that would make you so excited. You would puke if you met your 70 year old self, because that's the thing that I took away from this was like you can't really go back and change things.

Yeah. It is what it is. You are where you're at and that's it. And maybe it's awesome and maybe it's mediocre and maybe it sucks. But if you really think about why is that eight year old, why would an eight year old kid be upset? There's obviously some things there that you haven't done.

And I think if I'm eight, I'm like, man, I want a badass job, when I was eight, I'd be like, I want a badass job. I want to make a bunch of money. I want to have adventure. I want to do fun stuff. Like just obviously naive to the world, but even still, it would be take a big swing, Danny do something fucking awesome, do something really cool.

And that's just not what most of us do. We don't because the reality is it's not that simple sometimes and it's hard and it's scary But if you look at it from the perspective of where you're at now And what if you met your future self what would make you so excited you would puke you can start to make those changes now So maybe it is taking a risk on yourself.

Maybe it is having difficult conversation with somebody that you've been avoiding Maybe it is you know trending a different direction a different career a different Any number of things, maybe it's getting back involved with things that, that you haven't had time for physically or groups and communities that you're not a part of.

I it, for it being a little kids movie, a little Disney movie, it's shockingly impactful for me to see this scene because it's just a, it's a funny reminder of that you just need to wake up, wake up and be intentional about the time that you have, because you don't know how long you have.

It's not long. If you really think about it, it's a blip on the radar. If you think about how long, humans have been around, how long we're going to be around going forward, like we're a blip on the radar. It's so insignificant, but it's significant to you in the time that you're here and the people around you.

And that's the key is be mindful of that. Don't just like cruise through your day, your week, your year, decade. So many people do that. They just put themselves on autopilot and they just, they never actually accomplish something that they actually want to do. They never take a risk on anything and never make a change to anything.

And they just slowly die. They just wait to die. And that sounds morbid and it's sounds sad to hear that out loud, but that's the truth. So I don't know if a little kids movie, had, has me thinking about this stuff. Hopefully at least I can share it with you because I see far too many people. They literally live a life of just being on autopilot and they're not doing anything that their eight year old self would be proud of, or so excited to know that their life was trending that direction, that was coming up.

So think about that. What things would you change now so that in the future, if you. Could meet your 70 year old self. You'd be so excited to be that person, to have turned into that person, because you can start to do that now, can't really go back and change things, but you can definitely start to make changes now.

And I think the thing to sniff out is what are you scared of? What are the things that you're shying away from for whatever reason, because it gives you some anxiety, some stress, there's change involved, or just difficult conversations involved. There's things that are just the unknown and lean into those.

And pick, maybe pick the easiest one that, you've been avoiding and start there and gain some momentum. And then start to chip away at those things. Maybe write down like what's important for you and start to work towards that stuff. Because now for me, like I talk a lot about business, but business from what I've realized is.

Is the greatest form of personal development that you could, that I've ever experienced outside of having kids and being in the military. And I think it's just such a hard thing. It's just a hard thing. And it makes you look inward so much. It, it exposes the flaws that you have, exposes also the strengths that you have.

That's the cool part about it. But if you're unwilling to work on these things that hold you back, then you're not going to make a whole lot of progress in your business. I see it all the time. Constantly, and it's also, this also goes to the way that you look at things, because there's people that crush it with the stuff we help us with.

And then there's people that are unwilling to make changes because they're hard because they're scary. And oftentimes they're unwilling to admit to themselves that they didn't do the thing that they needed to do because of fear, because they. Crumbled underneath that. And sometimes they blame other people around them and, taking ownership of those things is probably step number one for anybody that's looking to try to make a change, because if you're aware of it here, you have two options, you can either go ahead and try to work towards the change you're trying to make, or you can forget that you ever heard me talk about this.

Disney movie chalk, chalk it up to that. It's Oh, just some guy talking about a Disney movie. And then you forget. And that's what most of you will do. Most of you will do that. You'll just forget what I say. And that's normal. I don't expect you to remember everything, but some of you will remember this and some of you will start to take action and your life is going to start to change in a really significant way.

And I hope that is you. If you're listening to this, I hope that you don't just forget what I'm saying and go back to living that life on autopilot. That life is just every week looks the same. Every month looks the same. You what you do. You don't, you like the life that you have.

You don't but keep in mind if your eight year old self came and visited you today, would they be excited? Or would they be frustrated?

Hey peach entrepreneurs, we have big exciting news, a new program that we just came out with. It is our PT biz part time to full time five day challenge. Over the course of five days, we get you crystal clear on exactly how much money you need to replace by getting you ultra clear on how much you're actually spending.

We get you crystal clear on the number of people you're going to see and the average visit rate you're going to need to have in order to replace your income to be able to go full time. We go through three different strategies you can take to go from part time to full time. You can pick the one that's the best for you based on your current situation.

Then we share with you the sales and marketing systems that we use within our mastermind that you need to have as well. If you want to go full time in your own practice. And then finally, we help you create a one page business plan. That's right. Not these 15 day business plans. You want to take the small business association, a one day business plan.

It's going to help you get very clear on exactly what you need to do. And when you're going to do it to take action. If you're interested in signing up for this challenge, it's totally free. Head to physicaltherapybiz. com forward slash challenge. Get signed up there. Please enjoy. We put a lot of energy into this.

It's totally free. It's something I think is going to help you tremendously as long as you're willing to do the work. If you're doing the work, you're getting information put down and getting yourself ready to take action in a very organized way. You will have success, which is what we want. So head to physicaltherapybiz.

com forward slash challenge. Forward slash challenge and get signed up today.