Transcript

Building #1135 · From Chad

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It's the difference between a fortress and a facade.
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There's a story behind that. This is your daily message from
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Chad #1135 to upgrade your mental game today by telling
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yourself a better story. Because the most important story
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you hear is the story you tell yourself.
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This message is dedicated to Brian Kane.
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Here's the upgrade. You may build a life that looks
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impregnable, but upgraded thinking knows the walls you can
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see are never the ones that save you.
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Here's the story. Think about what a castle is.
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The picture of wealth, the picture of security.
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The quintessential fortress. Thick walls, high towers built
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to keep the danger out. In the hills of Turkey, there's
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a place called Burj Al Babas, a developer, built a whole village
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of castles, hundreds of identical Disney style castles
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sold to buyers chasing that feeling of magic and safety.
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So he borrowed, and he built 587 castles, $200 million.
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Then Turkey's currency cracked, demand dried up, and the debt
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didn't care. Today it's a ghost town.
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Rows and rows of empty castles, no water and no one home. 587
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fortresses, and not one of them could survive a single bad year.
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But here's the twist, those castles were copying Disney, and
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Disney copied a real 1 Neuschmannstein, the fairy tale
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castle in Bavaria that inspired Sleeping Beauty Castle.
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According to Guinness World Records, it's the tallest castle
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in the world, one of the most photographed buildings in the
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world, and since opening to the public has had over 60 million
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visitors. Walt saw it and built his icon
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from its silhouette. But the history of
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Neuschmannstein is another layer to the story.
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It was the ruin of a king. Ludwig the Second poured his
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fortune and then mountains of borrowed money into building the
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castle. He went so deep his own
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government declared him unfit to rule, and days later he was
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found dead in a lake he never saw the castle finished, so the
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fairy tale fortress the whole world copies was itself a
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monument to a man who mistook fantasy for foundation.
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History doesn't repeat, human nature does.
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Now here's the mirror, because this was never really about
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castles. We do the same thing with our
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own lives. We built the parts that show the
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house, the title, the image, walls that photograph
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beautifully and protect nothing. When the hard year comes and the
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hard year always comes, that's when you find out whether you
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build a fortress or a facade. Sam Zell, who made billions
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buying when everyone else was buried in debt, said it did not
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matter how smart you were if you didn't have staying power.
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The real fortress is never the part people can see.
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It's the reserve underneath the margin, the staying power.
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And now I can't look at that Disney logo, the castle that
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lights up before every movie, without thinking of this.
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The most magical picture in the world is built on the shape of a
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ruin. Let it be your reminder.
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The better story to tell yourself is build the fortress
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no one can see. Keep something in reserve, stay
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out of debt you can't survive. Build a life that can lose a
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year and keep going. Many are building an appearance
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of security and strength, but never the real thing.
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Tell me a story of staying power to from chadsmith@gmail.com.
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Send someone a text and ask them what are you doing to stay in
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the game? You can get a free copy of my
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book The Most Owerful Story in the World by going to
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fromchatgumroad com. The transcript of this message
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and hundreds of others are always available at wwwfromchat
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com.