Latest / The Strategize, Adapt, and Overcome Podcast by Brad Young / Choosing Your Ground: Positioning Yourself for Success

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Choosing Your Ground: Positioning Yourself for Success · The Strategize, Adapt, and Overcome Podcast by Brad Young

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Strategize, Adapt, and Overcome podcast by me,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Brad Young. There is a truth about success that almost
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  Speaker 1: nobody wants to hear because it takes the glory away
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  Speaker 1: from the individual and hands it to something quieter and
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  Speaker 1: less romantic. Where you stand matters more than how hard
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  Speaker 1: you fight. My name is Brad Young, and today I
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  Speaker 1: wanna talk with you about positioning, the art of choosing
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  Speaker 1: your ground because the environments you live in, the people
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  Speaker 1: you surround yourself with, And the situations you place yourself
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  Speaker 1: in shape your outcomes far more than raw effort ever will.
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  Speaker 1: Once you understand this, you stop trying to win every
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  Speaker 1: battle through sheer force and you start winning by simply
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  Speaker 1: standing in the right place. Sun Tzu wrote something more
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  Speaker 1: than 2,000 years ago that sits at the center of
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  Speaker 1: everything I want to share with you. He said that
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  Speaker 1: the skilled fighter puts himself into a position which makes
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  Speaker 1: defeat impossible and does not miss the moment for defeating
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  Speaker 1: the enemy. Read that slow. He's not talking about fighting harder.
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  Speaker 1: He is talking about standing smarter. The victory came from
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  Speaker 1: the position, not from the struggle. He also taught that
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  Speaker 1: the good fighter seeks victory from the situation and does
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  Speaker 1: not demand it from his people. The situation, the ground,
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  Speaker 1: the position, that is where battles are truly decided. I
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  Speaker 1: want you to sit with how freeing this idea actually is.
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  Speaker 1: So many of us carry the exhausting belief that success
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  Speaker 1: depends entirely on our willpower, that if we could just
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  Speaker 1: try harder, Push longer and grind more. Everything would work out.
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  Speaker 1: But that belief quietly ignores the most powerful lever you have.
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  Speaker 1: You do not have to win every fight through effort.
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  Speaker 1: You can choose ground where the fight favors you before
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  Speaker 1: it even begins. You can position yourself so that success
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  Speaker 1: becomes the natural result rather than the desperate exception. Let
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  Speaker 1: me start with the science because I never want you
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  Speaker 1: to take anything I say on faith alone. There is
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  Speaker 1: a large body of research on how environment shapes behavior,
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  Speaker 1: and the findings are humbling. Behavioral researchers have found that
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  Speaker 1: a significant portion of our daily actions are not conscious
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  Speaker 1: choices at all, but automatic responses triggered by our surroundings.
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  Speaker 1: Studies estimate that somewhere around 40% of what we do
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  Speaker 1: each day is habit, driven by cues in our environment
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  Speaker 1: rather than fresh decisions. Read that again, nearly half of
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  Speaker 1: your behavior is being steered by the ground you stand on,
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  Speaker 1: which means if you change your environment, you change your behavior,
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  Speaker 1: often without any willpower at all. This is why positioning
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  Speaker 1: is so powerful. Most people try to change their lives
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  Speaker 1: by fighting their environment every single day. They keep the
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  Speaker 1: temptation in the house and rely on willpower to resist it.
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  Speaker 1: They stay in the draining relationship and try to stay
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  Speaker 1: positive through sheer effort. They remain in the room full
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  Speaker 1: of people going nowhere, and hope to somehow rise above it.
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  Speaker 1: That is exhausting and it rarely works because you're fighting
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  Speaker 1: the ground itself. The strategist does the opposite. The strategist
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  Speaker 1: changes the ground so the battle is already half won.
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  Speaker 1: You do not resist temptation that is not there. You
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  Speaker 1: do not fight negativity you have removed yourself from. The
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  Speaker 1: Stoics understood this centuries before. Modern psychology gave it a name.
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  Speaker 1: Seneca wrote a great deal about the company we keep,
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  Speaker 1: and he was blunt about it. He said that we
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  Speaker 1: should choose our associates carefully because we absorb the qualities
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  Speaker 1: of those around us the way our bodies take on
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  Speaker 1: the temperature of the air. Sit with that image. You
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  Speaker 1: become the temperature of the room you spend your time in.
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  Speaker 1: If you surround yourself with people who complain, blame, and settle,
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  Speaker 1: you slowly cool toward that same resignation. If you surround
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  Speaker 1: yourself with people who strive, reflect, and grow, you slowly
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  Speaker 1: warm toward that same ambition Seneca advised choosing a person
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  Speaker 1: of good character and keeping them always before your eyes,
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  Speaker 1: living as if they were watching. He understood that the
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  Speaker 1: people around us are not just company. They are the
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  Speaker 1: ground we grow in. Let me give you research that
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  Speaker 1: confirms exactly what Seneca knew. There is a famous body
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  Speaker 1: of work on how behaviors and emotions spread through social networks.
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  Speaker 1: Researchers studying large groups of people over many years found
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  Speaker 1: that habits, moods, And even long-term outcomes ripple outward through
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  Speaker 1: the people we are connected to. Happiness spreads. Ambition spreads.
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  Speaker 1: Discipline spreads. And so do their opposites. The data showed
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  Speaker 1: that your chances of reaching certain outcomes shift measurably depending
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  Speaker 1: on the people closest to you and even the people
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  Speaker 1: connected to them. You are not an isolated island of willpower.
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  Speaker 1: You are part of a web. And the web is
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  Speaker 1: pulling you in a direction whether you have chosen it
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  Speaker 1: or not. Positioning means choosing that direction on purpose. Now,
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  Speaker 1: I want to be careful here because this can be
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  Speaker 1: misunderstood as blaming your circumstances. That is not what I'm
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  Speaker 1: saying at all. This is the opposite of an excuse.
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  Speaker 1: This is a source of enormous power. If your environment
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  Speaker 1: shapes you, then choosing your environment becomes one of the
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  Speaker 1: most important decisions you will ever make. You may not
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  Speaker 1: control every circumstance you were born into, but as an adult,
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  Speaker 1: You have far more say than you realize over the
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  Speaker 1: ground you stand on today. The rooms you enter, the
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  Speaker 1: voices you let in, the situations you say yes to,
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  Speaker 1: and the ones you walk away from. Every one of
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  Speaker 1: those is a positioning decision, and each one is quietly
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  Speaker 1: shaping who you become. Let me make this practical, because
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  Speaker 1: philosophy without application is just entertainment. I want you to
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  Speaker 1: do an honest audit of your ground. Look at the
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  Speaker 1: three great terrains of your life. First, your physical environment.
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  Speaker 1: Does the space you live and work in pull you
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  Speaker 1: toward your goals or away from them? Is the healthy
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  Speaker 1: choice the easy choice or do you have to fight
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  Speaker 1: for it every time? Second, your relationships. Who are the
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  Speaker 1: five people you spend the most time with and are
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  Speaker 1: they the temperature you want to become? Third, your situations.
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  Speaker 1: The recurring places and scenarios you put yourself in. Do
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  Speaker 1: they bring out your best self or your weakest one.
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  Speaker 1: When you look honestly at these three terrains, you begin
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  Speaker 1: to see that many of your struggles are not personal
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  Speaker 1: failings at all. They are positioning problems. Sun Tzu spent
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  Speaker 1: a great deal of the art of war discussing terrain,
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  Speaker 1: and one of his central teachings was that different ground
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  Speaker 1: demands different responses. He described types of ground and warned
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  Speaker 1: that the wise commander knows which ground to fight on
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  Speaker 1: and which ground to avoid entirely. He taught that there
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  Speaker 1: is ground on which we should not fight at all.
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  Speaker 1: Think about how liberating that is applied to your life.
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  Speaker 1: You do not have to win on every terrain. Some
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  Speaker 1: battles are lost the moment you agree to fight them
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  Speaker 1: on the wrong ground. The strategist recognizes hostile terrain and
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  Speaker 1: simply refuses to engage there, choosing instead to move to
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  Speaker 1: ground where victory is possible. Knowing which battles to walk
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  Speaker 1: away from is not weakness. It is one of the
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  Speaker 1: highest forms of wisdom. There is a stoic distinction that
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  Speaker 1: gives you real power here. And it comes from the
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  Speaker 1: heart of their philosophy. They divided the world into what
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  Speaker 1: is within our control and what is not. We cannot
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  Speaker 1: always control what environment we start in. We cannot control
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  Speaker 1: the actions of every person around us, but we can
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  Speaker 1: control the positioning decisions we make from here forward. We
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  Speaker 1: can control who we move toward and who we move
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  Speaker 1: away from. We can control the rooms we choose to enter.
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  Speaker 1: When you focus your energy on the positioning that is
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  Speaker 1: within your power, instead of complaining about the circumstances that
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  Speaker 1: are not You reclaim your role as the author of
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  Speaker 1: your own life. Let me give you one more piece
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  Speaker 1: of research because it changed how I think about the
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  Speaker 1: environments I place myself in. Studies on peer effects in
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  Speaker 1: education and performance have found that people tend to rise
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  Speaker 1: or fall toward the level of those around them. Researchers
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  Speaker 1: looking at students, athletes, and workers found that being surrounded
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  Speaker 1: by high performers measurably lifted individual performance, while the reverse
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  Speaker 1: was also true. you quietly calibrate yourself to your surroundings.
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  Speaker 1: This is why positioning yourself near people who are further
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  Speaker 1: along than you is one of the smartest moves you
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  Speaker 1: can make. Not to feel small next to them, but
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  Speaker 1: to let their standard become your new normal. Proximity to
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  Speaker 1: excellence raises your own ceiling, often without you even noticing
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  Speaker 1: it happen. Now, I want to be honest with you
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  Speaker 1: about something because I think you can handle it. Choosing
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  Speaker 1: better ground sometimes means leaving old ground behind, and that
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  Speaker 1: is not painless. It can mean creating distance from people
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  Speaker 1: you care about, but who are pulling you down. It
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  Speaker 1: can mean leaving a comfortable situation that is quietly keeping
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  Speaker 1: you small. It can mean walking away from a room
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  Speaker 1: where you are finally starting to feel like you belonged.
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  Speaker 1: This is real, and I will not pretend it is easy.
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  Speaker 1: But here is the truth I have watched play out
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  Speaker 1: again and again. You cannot grow into your potential while
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  Speaker 1: remaining rooted in ground that starves it. Sometimes the most
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  Speaker 1: loving thing you can do for yourself and eventually for
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  Speaker 1: the people around you is to plant yourself in richer soil.
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  Speaker 1: Let me give you a way to think about this
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  Speaker 1: that has served me well. Imagine that every environment you
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  Speaker 1: enter is either depositing into you or withdrawing from you.
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  Speaker 1: Some rooms fill you with energy, ideas, and belief. Others
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  Speaker 1: drain your focus, your hope, and your sense of what
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  Speaker 1: is possible. Most people drift through their environments without ever
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  Speaker 1: noticing the balance. The strategist tracks it carefully. You begin
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  Speaker 1: to ask of every recurring situation in your life, is
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  Speaker 1: this depositing or withdrawing? And when you see clearly that
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  Speaker 1: certain ground consistently drains you while contributing nothing to your growth,
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  Speaker 1: you gain the clarity and the courage to change your position.
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  Speaker 1: This is not about using people. It is about being
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  Speaker 1: intentional with the one life and the finite energy you have.
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  Speaker 1: Here's where positioning connects to something deeper, and that is momentum.
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  Speaker 1: Sun Tzu wrote about the power of what he called
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  Speaker 1: energy or momentum, describing how a rushing torrent can roll
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  Speaker 1: boulders because of the force of its position and flow.
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  Speaker 1: He taught that the skilled commander does not rely on
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  Speaker 1: the strength of individuals, but on the momentum created by
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  Speaker 1: superior positioning. Apply that to your life. When you position
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  Speaker 1: yourself well, in the right environment, among the right people,
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  Speaker 1: in the right situations, you generate a momentum that carries
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  Speaker 1: you forward with far less effort than fighting alone ever required.
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  Speaker 1: The current starts working for you instead of against you.
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  Speaker 1: That is the whole art of it. You stop swimming
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  Speaker 1: against the the river, and start choosing rivers that flow
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  Speaker 1: toward where you want to go. Let me give you
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  Speaker 1: something concrete to carry into your own life because none
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  Speaker 1: of this matters if it stays theoretical. This week, I
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  Speaker 1: want you to make one deliberate positioning decision, just one.
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  Speaker 1: It might be reorganizing your physical space so the right
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  Speaker 1: action becomes the easy action. It might be reaching out
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  Speaker 1: to one person who lifts you higher and scheduling time
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  Speaker 1: with them. It might be stepping back from one situation
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  Speaker 1: that consistently drains you and gives nothing back. You do
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  Speaker 1: not have to overhaul your entire life at once. You
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  Speaker 1: simply have to move one step toward better ground. Positioning
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  Speaker 1: is not a single dramatic event. It is a series
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  Speaker 1: of intentional choices made one at a time that slowly
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  Speaker 1: place you on terrain where success becomes natural. I want
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  Speaker 1: you to see your whole life through this lens now.
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  Speaker 1: You are always standing somewhere. You are always surrounded by someone.
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  Speaker 1: You are always shaped by something. The only real question
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  Speaker 1: is whether you are choosing that ground on purpose or
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  Speaker 1: letting it choose you by default. The person who drifts
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  Speaker 1: ends up on whatever terrain the current carried them to.
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  Speaker 1: The person who positions with intention ends up on ground
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  Speaker 1: they selected. Ground that serves their growth. Ground where their
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  Speaker 1: best self can finally take root and flourish. That choice
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  Speaker 1: is available to you starting right now in the very
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  Speaker 1: next room you decide to enter. Think about who you
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  Speaker 1: become when positioning becomes your way of moving through the world.
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  Speaker 1: You become someone who no longer relies on exhausting willpower
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  Speaker 1: alone because you have built environments that carry you forward.
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  Speaker 1: You become someone surrounded by people who raise your standard
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  Speaker 1: rather than lower it. You become someone who walks away
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  Speaker 1: from the wrong ground with peace instead of guilt and
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  Speaker 1: toward the right ground with purpose. And most empowering of all,
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  Speaker 1: you become the deliberate author of the conditions that shape
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  Speaker 1: your life, rather than the passive product of conditions you
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  Speaker 1: never chose. That is real power, and it is within
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  Speaker 1: your reach. Let me pull together what I hope you
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  Speaker 1: carry out of this conversation and into your life. The
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  Speaker 1: first thing to remember is that where you stand matters
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  Speaker 1: more than how hard you fight, because the skilled strategist
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  Speaker 1: seeks victory from the situation rather than demanding it through
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  Speaker 1: sheer force, so choose ground that favors you before the
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  Speaker 1: battle begins. The second thing is that nearly half of
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: your daily behavior is driven by your environment rather than
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: conscious choice, which means when you change your surroundings, you
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: change your actions, often with no willpower required at all.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: The third thing is that you become the temperature of
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: the room you spend your time in because habits, moods,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: and outcomes spread through the people closest to you. So
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: choose your associates with the same care you would choose
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  Speaker 1: anything that shapes your future. The fourth thing is that
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  Speaker 1: some ground should never be fought on and knowing which
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  Speaker 1: battles to walk away from is not weakness, but one
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  Speaker 1: of the highest forms of wisdom. The fifth thing is
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  Speaker 1: that you rise or fall toward the level of those
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  Speaker 1: around you. So positioning yourself near people further along, then
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  Speaker 1: you let their standard quietly become your new normal. The
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  Speaker 1: sixth thing is that every environment is either depositing into
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  Speaker 1: you or withdrawing from you. So track the balance honestly
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  Speaker 1: and gain the courage to change ground that consistently drains you.
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  Speaker 1: And the last thing, the one I want you to
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  Speaker 1: hold tightest, is that you are always standing somewhere, always
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  Speaker 1: being shaped by something. So Choose your ground on purpose.
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  Speaker 1: Make one deliberate positioning decision this week and let the
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  Speaker 1: current of the right environment carry you toward the success
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  Speaker 1: that was always meant to be yours. That brings us
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  Speaker 1: to the end of today's episode. Thank you for standing
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  Speaker 1: on this ground with me and for giving your time
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  Speaker 1: and your attention, which are two of the most valuable
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  Speaker 1: things you own. Remember that the wisdom we explore here
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  Speaker 1: means nothing until you carry it into your life and
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  Speaker 1: put it to work. So choose your ground with intention.
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  Speaker 1: Surround yourself with people who lift you higher. And position
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  Speaker 1: yourself for the success you are fully capable of reaching.
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  Speaker 1: This has been the Strategize, Adapt, and Overcome podcast with me,
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  Speaker 1: Brad Young. Until next time, keep strategizing, keep adapting, and
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  Speaker 1: keep overcoming.