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BONUS: Joel's Words Of Encouragement in Uncertain Times · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi everybody.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Cena asked me to talk to you a little bit, to just encourage everyone.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I get that there's uh there's a lot going on in our in our country right now and in our lives personally.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: And we're we're dealing with you know price increases, we're you know, we're dealing with still COVID and and CDC pronouncements every day, and and there's a lot of confusion.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: And meanwhile, you know, the kids still need their teeth brushed, they need shoes, we need to get them places, and we're just hurried and harried and frenzied and and and frantic, and and and it's easy to get discouraged and and um and just feel like man, are are we ever gonna what get up out of this?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Are we ever gonna you know uh catch this?
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, there's a so there's a there's a book.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um for me, it's probably you know one of the most important books I've ever read, um, by Stephen Covey.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, he did this uh seven habits of highly effective people.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's iconic in the business community uh and self-help world.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so he he drew these three circles.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna I'm gonna try to do this here for you.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'll do all right, so you got you got three circles here, all right?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the the the inside one here is what we can control.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what we can control.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: This next one is called I'm sorry, the sphere of influence.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that next ring out, and the final ring out is what's called, and I made a mistake, I put it on the wrong place, but anyway, this is this is real.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um beyond control.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: So you have so you have this inner one is what we can control.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: The next one is our sphere of influence, and the outside one is beyond our control.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And if you'll think about it, a lot of the a lot of the things that that we're frustrated or or feeling you know uh disempowered about are out here in this outer ring.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, a lot of the things that we're angry about, frustrated about are out here in this outer ring, beyond our control.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we can't make we can't make somebody believe what we believe.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: We can't, goodness, none of us can stop the war in in uh Ukraine, okay?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: We can't tell Vladimir Putin to make a change.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: We can't, there are just a lot of those things, okay.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: If we made, if we made an angry list, a frustration list, it could be pretty big.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: But think about how much of that is out here on this outer ring.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So look at this inner ring.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we can control.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: I can control my attitude toward things, I can control how I respond to things, I can control my time, especially my free time.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: I can control, you know, what movies I watch, where I go, how I spend money, a lot of it.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: His point is that the more time we spend on this inner circle that's within our control, the greater our sphere of influence.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: That ring there gets bigger and bigger and bigger out here, be to things that are that are beyond our control.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Our sphere of influence increases the more time we spend here.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we think about as we think about you know uh dysfunctional times and crazy times, I want us to think about what we can control.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Think about your time schedule.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, put down what you spend your time on in a day.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Keep a my dad, uh I remember one time he was frustrated about I just can't seem to be getting things done.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so for a week, he kept a log in like one-minute increments of a week, you know, in my day.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, from brushing my teeth to uh, you know, devotions to reading the newspaper to looking the count, whatever.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I remember this voluminous list you know he made.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember well he came to the came to the dinner table on Saturday night.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, I found the problem.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, what's the problem?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And we've been watching do this all week, you know, all this stuff.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh said, the problem is I spend 30 minutes a day reading the newspaper, so I'm gonna quit reading the newspaper.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the idea being, you know, that that 30 minutes times whatever, seven days in a week, uh, you know, two and a half or several hours.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and uh, you know, I don't think it lasted very long.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: We're two news junkies around here.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't quit reading the newspaper for very long, I mean, maybe a week or two.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: But but I remember that exercise because I found it so uh interesting that um that he was actually trying to put his finger on where the time was going.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: What am I actually doing?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: The same thing can be done with, of course, Dave Ramsey talks about this with money.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Make a budget.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, do you really know where money's going?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Where I'm going is I think that we all need to put emphasis on getting a little bit of wiggle room in our lives.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Wiggle room to hug the kids, wiggle room to smell the roses, wiggle room to um give money to a struggling friend, something, do something philanthropic, something beyond ourselves.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And as we begin to create direct action in stuff that we really can control, as we start taking all this angst and frustration and turmoil and and putting and and bringing it to, okay, you know, what can I actually do today?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, can I make supper today?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Can I can I um order can I order food uh from a from a better place uh today?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: We can make those lists and those kinds of things give us wiggle room in our life.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: They give us wiggle room in our health if you start, you know, uh uh eating better, if you start cooking better, if you start spending your money better.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now you're not, you know, uh you don't need all the baubles, you don't need uh everything that's this bright and shiny and what everybody else has.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, forget the fashion, forget the fads, you know, go to the thrift store.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and and and and you can you can gradually um uh embrace this stuff that's in this inner circle here, this control.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'm convinced that as we as we focus our energy there, it kind of takes the pressure off of us to think like, oh man, if you know, um if if I could just influence this or influence that or influence the other.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, your influence, your influence increases when you actually create wiggle room in your life.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Stephen Covey didn't talk about wiggle room.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that's my that's my uh deal, but um but but wiggle room, time to just sit and relax, think, um wiggle room to make that call to get better food, wiggle room to actually make breakfast for the kids instead of throwing a pop-tart in the toaster, that sort of thing.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um that kind of wiggle room makes the life that we control better.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we take that energy, use it for something positive, something creative, something inspirational in our lives, and suddenly we have friends saying, Oh, how do you do that?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And our sphere of influence grows, and all great changes happen from the bottom up, they don't happen from the top down.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're sitting here waiting for the top to understand it, you know, you're gonna be waiting a long time.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Let's all work on ourselves, and I'll say this to myself.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not I'm not here pre I'm I can take it to myself as well.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: But all of us can work on being a better me.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: And when we're a better me, we end up helping other people be better you.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great day.