Latest / From Chad / Advising #1193

Transcript

Advising #1193 · From Chad

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  Advice from a tree. There's a story behind that.
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  This is your daily message from Chad #1193 to upgrade your
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  mental game today by telling yourself a better story.
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  Because the most important story you hear is the story you tell
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  yourself. This message is dedicated to
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  Heather Shirey on her birthday. Here's the upgrade.
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  You think you're stuck because you don't have the answer.
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  But upgraded thinking knows you're stuck because you haven't
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  gotten quite enough to hear it. Here's the story.
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  The poet Alan Shamir was going through a difficult time.
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  There wasn't a clean fix, just the kind of weight that bears
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  down on you. So he took a walk, and somewhere
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  along the way, he sat down beside an old Cottonwood tree.
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  Then he did something a little strange.
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  Imagine asking the tree for advice.
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  What conversation would it have with him?
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  What would something that has stood in one place that long say
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  to a man who can't find his footing?
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  He just got quiet and listened, and what he heard became a poem
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  called Advice from a Tree. The tree told him to hold his
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  ground, to reach out farther than feels safe, to remember
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  what he grew from, and to stop and enjoy the view.
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  Obviously, the tree never said a word.
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  Every line came from himself. He already knew all of it.
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  He didn't need a new idea. He needed a quiet place to sit
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  and enough time to hear the truth.
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  That's a story he told himself, and it was better than the 1 he
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  walked in with. The Bone went viral before there
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  were social media. Ended up on posters, calendars,
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  classroom walls, greeting cards. Plenty of people who hung it up
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  never learned his name. Some think it's an old saying,
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  Some think it's Native American wisdom.
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  It's Alan Shamir's, and it's in his book Poetry the Wilderness I
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  am. It's spread because we're all
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  carrying the same question, and the answers are the same old
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  ones we already know. Hold your ground, take the risk.
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  Remember where you came from. Look around at how far you've
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  come. You're not short on advice,
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  you're short on silence. So today, go get quiet.
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  Take a walk, sit down somewhere. Ask yourself the question you
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  keep asking everyone else. Then listen.
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  And if you need to find an old tree to do the talking, the
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  better story to tell yourself is I already know what to do.
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  I just need to get quiet enough to hear it.
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  Tell me a story of a time you found the answer by getting
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  quiet to from chadsmith@gmail.com.
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  Send someone a text and ask them.
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  What's the question you keep asking everyone but yourself.
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  You can get a free copy of my book, The Most Powerful Story in
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  the World, by going to from chad.gumroad.com.
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  The transcript of this message and hundreds of others are
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  always available at www.fromchad.com.