Latest / Inspirations for Your Life / How do we belong (S5) S22:E7

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How do we belong (S5) S22:E7 · Inspirations for Your Life

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Well, hello there everyone, it is John C.
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Morley here, serial entrepreneur.
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It's great to be with you on the
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Inspirations for Your Life show.
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Today, ladies and gentlemen, is Friday, yes, and
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with it being Friday, that means we're at
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the end of a new, the ending of
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a master topic, and then tomorrow we start
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a brand new master topic, so really great
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to have you there to be with me.
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And so, yeah, we're wrapping up a really
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cool topic.
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If this is your very first time here,
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I want to take the opportunity to say
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thank you, and of course, welcome to the
0:57
show.
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If you've been here one time, five times,
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10 times, 100 times, or even more, I
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want to say thank you, but I also
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want to say the words, welcome back.
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Really always appreciate people that enjoy the quality
1:07
and the content of my show.
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So without any further ado, guys, let's kick
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this off, but before I do, if you're
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thirsty or hungry or whatever, feel free to
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go grab yourself something.
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I have my RO water with some fresh
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lemon, and that just hits the spot.
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All right, guys, let's go ahead and let's
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kick this show off, okay?
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All right, so, yes, great to be with
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everybody here and wrap this wonderful week up.
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All right, so this is Inspirations for Your
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Life, it is series five, it's show 22,
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it's episode number seven, and our title, a
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very apropos, as kind of linking in with
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the whole master topic, how do we belong?
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We're talking about belongingness, right?
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So we're talking about how do we belong,
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okay, to wrap everything up.
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So how we focus shapes our daily performance.
2:03
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Inspirations for
2:06
Your Life.
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Don't forget to check out BelieveMeAchieve.com after
2:08
the show as well.
2:09
I am your host, John Seymour.
2:12
Serial entrepreneur, engineer, marketing specialist, video producer, podcast
2:16
host, coach, keynote speaker, graduate student, passionate lifelong
2:21
learner, and a very grateful published author recently.
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So today, I'm diving into something that touches
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every single one of us, whether we realize
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it or not.
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That is the powerful human need to belong,
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but we're not stopping there.
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We're also connecting this idea to something that
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drives your results every single day.
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What is it?
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Your focus.
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Because here is the truth, ladies and gentlemen,
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are you ready?
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Where your attention goes determines not just what
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you achieve, but where you feel you belong.
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Hmm, we never talked about that before.
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So let's unpack this together, okay?
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The first thing is, what is belonging?
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Belonging definition, belonging is the feeling of being
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accepted, valued, and included in a group or
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an environment or a culture.
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It's not just about being present.
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It is about feeling seen and understood.
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Why do we crave belonging so much?
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Great question.
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So humans are wired for connection.
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From a survival standpoint, belonging once is meant
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for our safety.
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Today, it still drives our emotional well-being
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and confidence, and of course, decision-making, right?
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Belonging versus fitting in.
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Fitting in is changing who you are to
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be accepted.
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Belonging is being accepted for who you truly
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are.
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One drains you, the other fuels you.
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So if you're trying to fit in, you're
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like having to make changes.
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That's not the way it should be.
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You should be the way you are, and
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people should accept you.
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So again, one drains you, the other fuels
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you.
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Which one drains you?
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Trying to fit in.
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So I think that's an important.
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A lot of people try to fit in
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because they feel if they don't fit in,
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they won't be liked, they won't get in.
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But the truth of the matter is, just
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be yourself.
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Core circles of belonging.
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We've got family.
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Family is often our first experience of belonging.
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It shapes our identity, our values, and our
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emotional foundation that we have.
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Extended family, this expands our sense of connection
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and introduces diversity in thought, culture, and also
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traditions.
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Friends, yep, friends become the family we choose.
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They influence habits, mindset, and even success patterns
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that we'll exhibit.
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Neighborhoods where we live impacts your sense of
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safety, your identity, and your daily interactions.
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That's important to know.
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Structured groups and identity.
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Schools.
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Schools are early ecosystems of belonging where we
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learn social roles.
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Comparison and collaboration.
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How about study groups?
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These create focused belongingness where we share goals,
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drive deeper and connection, and become more accountable.
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Clubs and organizations.
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Clubs align people with shared passions.
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Could be a hobby or something else.
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Giving identity beyond work or family.
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Now, another one that's been around for a
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long time, and people don't get why it's
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so important, that's sports, sports teams.
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Sports teach belonging through teamwork, discipline, and shared
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victories, or the losses that happen.
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Social and cultural layers.
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We've got things like religious groups.
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They provide spiritual connection, shared beliefs, and moral
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frameworks.
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We've got political groups.
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They offer ideological belonging, right?
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Though they can also create division if it's
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not balanced, so it's important to keep that
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in mind.
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Volunteer organizations help others build a powerful sense
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of purpose-driven belongingness.
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Race and cultural identity.
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Cultural belonging shapes traditions, values, and how we
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see ourselves in the world that we're in.
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Our orientation and personal identity.
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Being accepted for who you are, who you
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love at your core is one of the
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deepest forms of belonging, and sometimes it really
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trips up a lot of people because people
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think they need to be a certain way
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to be liked.
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Personal and lifestyle belonging.
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Occupation.
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Your career often becomes a major identity marker.
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It influences how others perceive you and how
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you perceive yourself.
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Financial status.
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Money can create inclusion or exclusion.
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Impacting confidence and opportunity.
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And when one happens and excludes something, and
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you have lack you focus on, you just
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get more of that lack.
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Dating and relationships.
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Romantic as well as non-romantic connections.
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Bring emotional belongingness, but also a sense of
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vulnerability.
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We've got things like parties and social events.
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These are short-term belonging environments, and that
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can either energize us or drain us, depending
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on the alignment that's present.
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The missing link.
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Focus now here is where most people miss.
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Belonging is not just about where you are.
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It is about what you focus on and
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who you are.
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Focus directs our emotional energy.
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If you focus on rejection, you'll feel excluded,
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even in a room full of support.
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Focus shapes your identity.
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What you consistently pay attention to becomes your
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reality and your self-image.
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Hey, this relates back to something I've said
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many times before.
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And wherever our thoughts are going, that's where
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the energy is going to flow, right?
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That's important to understand.
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Focus drives performance.
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Scattered attention leads to weak results.
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What we focus on is what we're going
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to get.
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May not be what we want, but what
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we focus on is what we get.
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Directed focus, guys, creates momentum and mastery.
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Focus filters relationships.
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You attract and retain the people you consistently
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invest attention in.
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And it becomes this subconscious behavior that we're
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not even aware that we're doing it at
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first.
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Focus builds our confidence.
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And when you focus on growth, guys, and
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progress, your sense of belonging strengthens naturally.
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Yeah, naturally.
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Practical application.
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Let's bring this home now, okay?
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If you feel like you do not belong,
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ask yourself this question.
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Where am I placing my focus?
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Am I focusing on acceptance or rejection?
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Am I aligning with the groups that reflect
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who I truly am and are part of
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my core values or not?
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Belonging is not something you wait for.
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It is something you actively create through intention,
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awareness, focus, and the actions you take.
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And I think a lot of people today,
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when you hear the word belonging, they get
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really stuck, right?
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The reason they get stuck is they want
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to do something, but they're not where they
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want to be.
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They're not where they want to be.
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And I think that hurts some people, okay?
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That's important.
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And if you don't understand that, guys, today,
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your life can be hard because you're always
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chasing your tail.
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Not because you want to, but because you
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do because of the situation or because of
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where you're currently aligned.
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What you're focusing on is saying, hey, chase
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my tail, chase my tail, chase my tail.
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But chasing your tail is not the answer.
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I want to talk about belonging in a
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sense of something called Maslow.
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It's called Maslow's Triangle.
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I'm not sure if you've heard of it
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before.
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So Maslow's Triangle is really pretty cool.
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So it basically has the different levels of
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actualization, all right?
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And so Maslow's Triangle, by the way, it's
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been around for quite a while.
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And I think a lot of people don't
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really get it at first, okay?
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But there are basically seven, think of it
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like this.
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There's seven, it's a seven level pyramid.
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And it categorizes basically human motivation into deficiency
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and growth needs.
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So everyone always asks me, John, what are
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all the seven levels?
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And so when we think about this, they're
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not hard, but they happen whether we want
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them or not.
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So what are the seven levels of Maslow's
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Triangle?
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Oh, let's go into them one by one,
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okay?
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So the very first level of the Maslow's
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Triangle is psychological needs, okay?
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And we start at basically at the bottom,
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okay?
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We start at the bottom and we work
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our way up to the top.
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So psychological needs, essential for human survival, including
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food, water, warmth, rest, and breathing, okay?
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Including other types of bodily habits, using the
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restroom and things like that.
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Those are all part of our psychological, our
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needs, part of our survival needs, part of
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what we need to do every single day,
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right?
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And so once we have, let's say, mastered
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our psychological needs, which again is the human
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survival things, water, warmth, et cetera, rest, breathing,
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et cetera, then we move on to the
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next level of Maslow's Triangle, and that's called
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safety needs.
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And that's things like protection, protection from elements,
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security, order, law, stability, and freedom, guys, from
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fear, freedom from fear.
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Everyone has the right to have freedom from
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fear, okay?
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All right, the next layer up is three,
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and that is more on the psychological needs,
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but this is now the love and the
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belongingness needs, which is what we've been talking
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about a lot here today.
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Social needs involving friendships, intimacy, first platonic and
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non-platonic, trust, acceptance, and being part of
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a group or a family.
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That's something everyone yearns for, okay?
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And when you get that, you're now ready
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to move on to the next level, which
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is esteem, the need for self-respect, achievement,
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mastery, independence, and the desire for reputation or
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respect from others.
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You can't skip the pyramid, okay?
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You have to go from the bottom and
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you have to go on your way up.
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If you don't do that, guys, what happens
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is you'll find that your pyramid is not
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going in the right direction and you're gonna
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be jumping over and you're gonna be missing
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things.
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So I think those are very important things
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that we need to focus on, okay?
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We need to focus on those things.
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And when we focus on them, we can
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understand why and how something is actually a
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certain way.
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But again, the Maslow triangle is not something
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you master overnight, just to be quite honest
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with you.
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Let's move on to the next one, okay?
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The next one is this, all right?
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We're now gonna get into the growth.
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So if you notice the first set of
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needs was basic needs, psychological needs and safety
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needs, okay?
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Then we're into psychological needs, okay?
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Which is the love and belongingness needs and
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the esteem needs, that's psychological.
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Now we move into the growth, self-fulfillment
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needs, cognitive needs, the desire for knowledge, curiosity,
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exploration, meaning, and predictability.
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We have to move through these levels of
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the triangle.
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If we don't, we will just not be
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happy in our lives, okay?
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So that's a very important thing that I
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wanna share with you, cognitive needs.
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Number six, aesthetic needs.
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The appreciation, search for beauty, balance, form, and
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art, that's number six.
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Now, once you've gotten all the way past
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this, up to the sixth level, there is
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one final level of Maslow's triangle, okay?
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Are you ready for it?
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Self-actualization.
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Now in self-actualization, there's a few different
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things in that level.
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So it's not like, you know, you're gonna
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understand overnight.
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You are not gonna understand overnight.
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The first one is realizing your personal potential.
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Some people go their entire life and don't
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realize the potential that they have within them.
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Okay, so that is very important.
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The next one is self-fulfillment, okay?
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So actually fulfilling what you can do.
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The next one is seeking personal growth.
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So not just fulfilling your desires, but growing
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and learning, okay?
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And the last one is peak experiences.
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So while originally a five-tier model, Maslow
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later expanded the hierarchy to include cognitive and
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aesthetic levels, bringing it to seven.
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So if you were all wondering like, oh,
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I don't get this, I don't understand it.
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And so a lot of people now that
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I explain it still don't understand what Maslow's
17:04
triangle is, okay?
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Let's try to break it down again.
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Number one, survival, building stability, okay?
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Physical, mental health, and guess what guys in
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there?
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It's also financial wellbeing.
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That's number one.
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Number two is a sense of belonging.
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Your relationships, your family, your friendships, your safety.
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Listening, open communication.
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Then we move up to number three, self
17:32
-esteem.
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Focus on achievement, positive self-image, being the
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best.
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Basically security, competence, productivity, and efficiency.
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Security is different than safety.
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Safety is making sure I'm okay.
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And security is just keep learning about what
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you, can share or not.
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That can be something physically.
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So there's a lot of parts to security.
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So that's where that comes from.
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We get into four of the triangle, consciously
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evolving, transformation, autonomy, accountability, freedom, courage,
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responsibility, and innovation.
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Most people do not get past step four,
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just to be quite honest with you.
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Then you move on to step five, which
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is self-expression.
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Meaning and purpose, authenticity.
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A lot of people wrestle with this because
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they're copying other people.
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They try to imitate everything.
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So they don't really exhibit who they really
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are.
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Integrity, inner alignment, purpose, creativity, clarity, and transparency.
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You can't just move through these triangle layers
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like one, two, three.
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Number six, connection, community involvement.
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Making a difference, collaboration, empathy, environmental awareness.
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These are things like charity, volunteering, helping people.
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I think that's a very important thing to
19:06
understand.
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When we help others, we feel good, okay?
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It's a boomerang effect.
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That's probably the best thing I can tell
19:18
you, is that it's about the fact that
19:22
when you do something good, it comes back.
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Even if you did something bad, it would
19:26
come back.
19:26
So you wanna do good, right?
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The more you can do good, the more
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that little boomerang, if you don't know what
19:31
a boomerang is, so a boomerang has been
19:33
around for many years, but just to help
19:36
you, if you said, John, what is a
19:37
boomerang?
19:39
A boomerang is a curved, flat, wooden piece.
19:44
Them people call it a tool.
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It was used by the indigenous Australians for
19:49
hunting.
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When thrown correctly, it spins and returns to
19:53
the thrower.
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Figuratively, it means an action or a statement
19:59
that unexpectedly could be backfired, but it also
20:02
could come back in a good light, okay?
20:07
And so when we hear that, oh my
20:09
gosh, watch what you're doing, because it's gonna
20:10
boomerang.
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People think about it in the negative sense,
20:12
but I think we need to look about
20:13
it in the positive sense.
20:14
Do something good, and then somebody is gonna
20:16
boomerang back to help you.
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I think those are important things that a
20:20
lot of people don't really understand or realize.
20:24
Boomerangs can be good, right?
20:29
And so boomerangs help you reclaim your time
20:34
with powerful things like emails, meeting schedule tools,
20:39
okay?
20:41
A boomerang, again, has been around for a
20:46
very, very long time.
20:49
An Egyptian boomerang from the archeological museum is
20:56
still around to see.
20:57
And a boomerang is not small.
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It's pretty big.
21:04
In some cases, it's about basically the one
21:08
part, the smallest part of the boomerang, maybe
21:10
less than 3.9 inches, okay?
21:13
From the tip to tip.
21:15
And the largest over it would be about
21:21
71 inches in length.
21:24
That's a lot, right?
21:31
Over six feet.
21:35
And so boomerangs have been used, they were
21:38
thrown at animals such as kangaroos, some of
21:41
the oldest rock art in the world.
21:44
We learned from the indigenous Australian rock art.
21:47
And so the thing about a boomerang is
21:50
that whenever you throw it properly, it always
21:52
comes back to you.
21:56
And so a lot of people don't really
21:59
understand it.
21:59
But when I say something's gonna boomerang back,
22:02
people always assume it's gonna be negative, but
22:04
I'm here to tell you, it's not always
22:05
negative.
22:06
If you put out good energy, good energy
22:09
is gonna come back out and it's going
22:12
to find you.
22:13
So do something nice to somebody else and
22:16
you're gonna feel the positive wrath of that,
22:19
okay?
22:19
What we focus on is what happens, guys.
22:22
I think that's important to understand.
22:24
So here, ladies and gentlemen, is your takeaway
22:27
if you didn't know what it was, okay?
22:30
You do not need to fit into every
22:34
room.
22:36
You don't.
22:37
If you think you do, you're gonna be,
22:40
first of all, disillusioned and you're gonna be
22:43
very unhappy with life.
22:52
I think that's an important thing to note
22:55
about that, okay?
22:59
Important to know what could happen and why
23:02
things could happen a very certain way.
23:05
And that certain way is something that a
23:08
lot of people, I feel, I feel they
23:10
just, they get lost with that concept.
23:16
And that's something that many people here don't
23:20
understand.
23:22
What you focus on attracts more into your
23:26
life.
23:26
So again, you don't need to fit in
23:27
every room.
23:28
You need to find or create the room
23:32
where you truly belong.
23:34
A lot of times I help groups and
23:36
they say, oh, I gotta attract everybody.
23:37
No, you don't.
23:38
You need to attract the right people into
23:40
your group that align with your mission, your
23:43
core values and what you stand for.
23:45
And the fastest way to do that is
23:49
by mastering what, guys?
23:50
Your focus, your focus.
23:54
I think that's an important thing to understand.
23:58
And maybe you don't realize that.
24:01
You don't realize why that's happening, okay?
24:04
But it's important to understand what that's about
24:09
and maybe what pathway you're going down.
24:12
So the fastest way to do that is
24:14
by mastering your focus.
24:15
What you focus on is what you become,
24:18
really simple.
24:19
Because ladies and gentlemen, when your focus is
24:22
clear, your actions align, right?
24:29
You come into your groove.
24:31
You come into your own space.
24:33
When your actions align, your confidence grows.
24:39
I bet that was a shock.
24:41
And if your confidence grows, things are gonna
24:43
change for you.
24:46
Things are going to change for you.
24:49
I think that's a very important thing to
24:52
actually understand.
24:58
And when your confidence grows, belonging follows.
25:08
So I focus, right?
25:15
I then get confidence.
25:18
And once I get confidence, I feel as
25:22
though I belong.
25:25
Many people I know, all different ages, they
25:30
knock themselves out to try to fit in.
25:33
We don't need to fit in.
25:36
We need to belong.
25:38
And if you're not belonging, well, you're not
25:40
with the right group.
25:41
You're not with the right crowd.
25:43
I mean, that's just the easiest thing to
25:44
me to tell you.
25:46
Maybe you wanna be in that group because
25:48
you think it's the way to be.
25:49
But I gotta tell you guys, that may
25:51
not be the best thing for you.
25:53
It might not.
25:56
When we push into the door and the
25:59
door doesn't open on its own, I don't
26:02
think that's supposed to be.
26:04
Ladies and gentlemen, I take this opportunity right
26:07
now on this Friday to thank you personally
26:10
for joining me here on Inspirations For Your
26:13
Life.
26:13
You can, of course, view this show again
26:17
and other episodes as well as more of
26:19
my short form and long form content by
26:21
visiting, what is it guys?
26:23
Believemeachieve.com.
26:25
Who am I in case you forgot?
26:26
Sure.
26:27
I'm John Seymour, a serial entrepreneur, author, and
26:30
a plethora of other things.
26:31
And I am reminding you right now that
26:34
your life is shaped by what you choose
26:36
to focus on.
26:39
So let's be mindful of what we're choosing
26:43
to focus on because when we're mindful, the
26:48
things that we want to show up in
26:49
our life will start showing up.
26:54
That's a very interesting thing, guys.
26:58
When we're mindful, a lot of people rush
27:02
to mindfulness because they're like, oh my gosh,
27:03
I have to do this, I have to
27:04
do this, I have to do that.
27:13
I think that's an important thing to note,
27:20
okay?
27:23
An important thing to note.
27:25
If we don't note that, we might get
27:26
a little bit lost and that can harm
27:34
some people, right?
27:38
It can harm some people because they don't
27:39
necessarily know why something is a certain way.
27:43
But I'm here to tell you guys that
27:46
it is possible when you focus on the
27:54
right thing, okay?
27:59
So I hope you guys have a great
28:00
rest of your evening or day and I'll
28:01
catch you guys real soon.
28:03
And start belonging.
28:06
Belong, don't try to fit in.