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105. Put Your Blinders On · Impact Ready

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  Welcome to Impact Ready, a show dedicated to helping you elevate
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  your impact in the world. I'm Steph Safra, your host.
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  Let's explore the power of showing up with intention and
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  energy each day. This is for those who seek to
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  make life truly meaningful. Get ready for impact.
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  Hey team, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.
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  I just got back from Oakland, CA.
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  I go there quarterly to meet up with my mastermind group and
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  connect with people who are like minded and all working on their
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  businesses around speaking and coaching and consulting.
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  And then we get to be part of a 2 day event where there's
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  speakers from all over the country who are coming in and
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  practicing their message and really curating and cultivating
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  their their brand and their business around public speaking.
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  And it's so awesome because you get to be around people who are
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  all very purpose driven in sharing what is important to
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  them. And you get to see all kinds of
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  messages. You get to see people coming
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  with all different perspectives, different stories, different
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  experiences that have shaped their lives.
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  And everybody's doing something a little bit different, which is
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  really cool. And I love every part of that.
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  But it did have me thinking about the fact that, man, there
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  is so much that you can do in the world.
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  There are so many directions you can go.
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  There's so many paths that you can take, and it can be very
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  easy to get distracted from your own path.
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  It can be very easy to get off track just because you have so
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  many options. And also you have so many things
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  pulling at your energy and your mind power.
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  There's so much distraction in the world.
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  On the one hand, it's beautiful to have a lot of options.
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  It's amazing that we have access to so many tools and so many
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  ideas. On the other hand, sometimes the
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  stuff can serve as a deterrent from staying on our own path and
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  really finishing what we start. And so in today's episode, what
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  I want to talk about is this idea about putting our blinders
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  on so that we can shut out the noise, shut out the excess
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  distraction, and stay on course with what's important to us.
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  This is also very applicable to what we consume in terms of
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  information because what we consume is really what our input
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  is comprised of it. It's all the influences that are
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  coming in from external sources and all of that stuff shapes the
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  story that we tell, the story that we tell about our lives.
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  One of my coaches describes this process as putting the blinders
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  on, like I said, and it's in reference to how they put
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  blinders on the sides of horses faces so that they don't get
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  spooked or distracted by what's going on around them.
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  The same thing is true of us. Sometimes we have to be a little
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  bit more selective about what we allow in so that we can be in
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  choice around our story and so we can be intentional about our
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  actions. When I say story being choice
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  around our story, what I'm talking about is all the things
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  that make up how we describe our life.
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  It's the language we use. I call it the language of our
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  life. How do we talk about things?
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  How do we talk about our marriage and our kids and our
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  job and our opportunities and, you know, our life in general?
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  It's also the ideas we consume, this input.
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  It's the ideas we consume. It's the social media we use,
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  the books we read, the music we listen to.
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  It's the conversations that we have.
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  It's also how we talk to ourselves internally.
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  There's always a little internal story going on in our minds,
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  mostly unconscious for a lot of people.
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  And so all of this creates the story that we tell about our
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  circumstances and our life. And I think a lot of people miss
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  this idea. They miss the fact that one,
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  we're telling a story all the time and two, we get to be in
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  choice about the story we tell. It's so simple.
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  It's it's like the simplest idea.
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  But when I'm explaining this to coaching clients, when it clicks
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  for them and they get it, they look at me and they're like, oh,
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  my God, this is actually really easy.
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  Are you telling me it's really just about the story we tell?
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  And I'm like, yeah, it is over and over again.
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  This is the sentiment that clients come up with to me
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  because they're like, I used to think that personal development
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  was so complicated that it was so hard that you had to put in
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  all this effort. And really what you're telling
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  me is it all boils down to the story that we choose to tell.
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  And a lot of times it is primarily about that because we
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  are always telling a story. We are always speaking out into
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  the world some sort of version of what we think is true about
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  the world. We are always broadcasting a
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  frequency through our energy, through our body language,
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  through our impact. And I always ask people, what is
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  the message that you want to be sending?
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  We have to be careful about what we allow in.
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  At times there are seasons of our life where we just have to
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  put the blinders on so that we can stay focused.
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  Not only so that we can stay focused in our goals and doing
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  the work that we want to do, but so we don't get inundated with
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  information and swayed by all of these arguments or opinions of
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  other people externally out in the world.
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  People who have no idea what our life is like, what it looks like
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  to be in our own body and really have their own agendas for what
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  they would like to happen with other people.
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  We have to be intentional about where we put our focus and our
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  energy so that we don't get bogged down.
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  You know, I was watching some of the speakers get up at the event
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  that I was at and I was noticing that each one kind of went into
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  their zone prior to getting on stage.
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  I mean, you have to, you have to block out the noise and the
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  distractions so that you can be focused and dialed in up there
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  for what you're about to do so that you can show up
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  authentically and, and be relaxed.
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  And I just was watching them and noticing that is one way to put
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  the blinders on is to get really focused and dialed in to shut
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  out the noise and the distraction.
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  And while that was a physical manifestation of this idea, the
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  same thing can apply mentally and emotionally as well.
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  There's something interesting that I've been noticing in my
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  own life lately, and it's the story that people tell about
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  cancer treatment. Most of you, you know that I'm
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  going through treatment right now for breast cancer and I have
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  12 weekly infusions of chemotherapy.
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  At this point, I'm over halfway. I'm feeling pretty good.
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  I'm feeling strong, managing side effects, really being able
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  to work full weeks and do what I need to do in my life.
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  And I'm so grateful for that because I recognize that that's
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  not the case for every patient who's going through
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  chemotherapy. Every chemo regimen is
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  different. Every cancer is different, and
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  so it's not going to look the same for every person.
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  I'm very grateful for where I'm able to be right now.
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  But something interesting is the way that people talk to me about
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  cancer treatment, the way they talk to me about chemotherapy.
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  And everybody is coming with good intention.
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  Most everybody is coming with the idea of I want to be
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  supportive of you. I want to empathize with you.
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  I want you to know that I see you.
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  But they say things like, Oh my God, this is so hard for you.
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  Oh my God, you must be exhausted.
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  I don't know how you're doing all of this.
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  You should be resting more. This must be crushing you.
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  You must be feeling really frustrated.
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  You must be really pissed off about what's happening to you.
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  And I'm just noticing it. I'm interested in this process
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  because as you know, I, I think there's a lot of power in
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  language and I'm always observing how people use
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  language. None of these people are coming
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  with I'll intent, but I have to put my blinders on to a lot of
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  this stuff because the input, the information that's coming
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  into my brain, the language that's coming in, the stories
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  that are coming in, the conversations that I have with
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  people, all of that influences my own story.
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  It does, it does. It can't be helped.
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  It's just the way that we are as humans.
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  The information that we take in can influence the story that we
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  tell, our perspective and, you know, the things that we expect
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  to happen. So I've had to learn to be
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  really careful in the last couple months about putting my
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  blinders on and focusing on the story that I want to tell.
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  And the story that I want to tell is that I'm capable, I am
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  strong, I can navigate this stuff.
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  I'm telling a story of ease. I've mentioned that in past
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  podcasts as my coach challenged me to tell a story of ease.
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  How can I invite ease into my life even during a time that's
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  really hard? And so I've been practicing
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  that, but I have to be careful about the input around me.
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  And that's not something that I maybe would have noticed before.
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  So that's just kind of an interesting little thing.
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  Leanne and I have started joking about some of the stuff that
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  we're going through. My wife.
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  And you know, some people might think it's a little crass or
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  inappropriate to be having this kind of dark humor on stuff.
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  But for us, it brings a lightness to the situation.
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  It alleviates what could feel very heavy.
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  And it's our way of controlling the story, putting our blinders
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  on and making sure that we are in choice around the perspective
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  that we have. And it's my way of staying in
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  power. It's my way of staying in my
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  strength, especially mentally, is feeling mentally strong.
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  And when I think about these questions, how do I stay in my
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  power? How do I stay on track with my
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  goals, with my pursuits? How do I find consistency in how
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  I show up every day? The answer for me is it's not to
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  give attention to every single thing in the world.
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  Sometimes you have to be more selective and intentional about
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  what you let in and give your attention and focus to.
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  There's probably something like this happening for you in your
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  life right now. Physically, you might be
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  training for something or working through an injury or
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  healing from something. You have to put blinders on so
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  that you can do the work. I have a patient right now who's
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  recovering from a massive reconstructive surgery on their
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  spine, and he has to be so focused on what he is doing
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  right now in PT with his doctors.
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  I really like the mental, emotional work of healing from
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  that type of a procedure. He has to be so focused on his
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  healing and he has to put his blinders on.
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  You might be working through something mental right now,
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  trying to heal a relationship or rise above some hard stuff, work
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  through some trauma. Maybe you're in therapy or
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  coaching, and you have to stay focused on your work.
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  You have to put the blinders on. You cannot take in all of the
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  information. You just don't always have the
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  bandwidth for that, especially when you're doing something that
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  takes energy and effort. And then of course,
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  energetically, this totally applies.
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  There's a lot of heavy stuff in the world right now.
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  We can acknowledge that. It's really difficult to be
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  consuming all of the news and the information that is
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  available right now, especially when you consider the types of
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  videos that are online. They're really graphic.
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  They are violent. There's information about trials
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  around the country and wars. It's really challenging to
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  consume all of that and keep your energy and your frequency
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  high. It just is.
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  You can feel it. You can feel a difference in
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  your vibration, how you feel when you've been taking that
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  kind of information in even for just 15 minutes.
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  I mean, it's like a fire hose, right?
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  It's too much. And so many people do it for
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  hours a day. This is not about putting your
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  head in the sand and being ignorant to what's going on in
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  the world. That's not what I'm talking
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  about. What I'm talking about is the
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  fact that we cannot take this all on energetically.
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  As humans. We're not need for this.
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  It's just too much. And so we have to be selective
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  and put our blinders on at some point.
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  I have a really great friend. She is a brilliant coach.
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  She's very empathic person, so skilled in self development, and
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  even she had to put her blinders on to the news cycle that was
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  happening. I think it was last year when
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  there was so much conflict going on in the world, the news cycle
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  took her down to a degree that she could not function in her
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  day. It was so intense, she couldn't
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  work, she couldn't connect with people.
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  She had to take like 3 weeks off to recover from the fact that
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  every single day she was taking in so much information about all
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  of this conflict and war happening in the world.
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  It's too much for us as humans. It's a lot even for the people
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  who have a lot of skills to be able to manage it.
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  Sometimes you have to put the blinders on.
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  And if you don't, we risk getting drained, we risk getting
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  burned out, losing our energy, and then we don't have the
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  ability to be effective or impactful in our life.
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  And I know that's not what we want.
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  So this is just another element to be able to harness your
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  effect and impact in the world is knowing when to put the
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  blinders on and when to take them off.
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  Knowing when to be more protective of your energy so
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  that you can be really intentional and in choice with
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  your story. There's always going to be days
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  where you're going to have more capacity to take in all the
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  information. It's just you have to know
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  yourself. You have to know how to protect
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  your energy and know when it's appropriate for you to put the
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  blinders on and shut out the noise and distraction so you can
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  stay on course for yourself, for your family, and for the people
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  in your sphere. So, so important.
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  So I hope this is helpful today. I hope that you can do just a
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  quick audit of your own life and make a decision about where you
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  might have to put the blinders on so that you can stay
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  impactful and effective in your own day-to-day.
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  I appreciate you being here. I'm so glad that we get to have
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  these conversations. Thank you for listening and as
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  always, team, thank you for being ready to Impact.
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  Thanks for listening to Impact Ready.
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  I hope today's episode inspired you to own your impact and
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  recognize that you are powerful. By elevating our energy and
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  awareness, we can create exponential change in this life.
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  If you enjoyed today's insights, share them with a friend and
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  subscribe to the show for more. I truly appreciate you.
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  Thanks again for being here.