Latest / From Chad / Surviving #1220

Transcript

Surviving #1220 · From Chad

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  Zoom out, then zoom back in. There's a story behind that.
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  This is your daily message from Chad #12120 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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  Taylor and Justin Whitaker on their anniversary.
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  Here's the upgrade. Zooming out can show you you'll
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  survive, but upgrade to thinking zooms back in to do something
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  about it. Here's the story.
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  Damian Gerk tells a story visiting the giant Sequoia near
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  Yosemite when he stopped at a cross section of an old tree
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  displayed in the visitor center. Hundreds of rings representing
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  the hundreds of years the tree stood.
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  Most of the rings were light and even, but one band was dark.
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  Several rings in a row pinched and scarred.
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  The plaque on the display described the year there was a
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  forest fire. The fire was just a thin, dark
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  band and a long, healthy life. But I want to be careful here.
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  If you're in the fire right now, maybe you buried a child.
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  Maybe you got the diagnosis. Maybe your finances are
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  troubling. The last thing you need is
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  someone telling you your pain is a blip.
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  That isn't wisdom. That's a comfortable person
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  talking to a burning one. But looking at the tree again,
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  the dark ring is still there hundreds of years later.
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  It never faded. The fire was real and the market
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  left is permanent. The cross section doesn't prove
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  the fire was small, it proves the tree lived through it.
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  There's an old story about a queen who is sad most of the
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  time. She sought the counsel of a wise
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  man who gave her a silver ring and told her to wear it.
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  A week later, nothing had changed.
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  She said to him, Your ring has been of no help.
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  He said the help was not wearing the ring but reading what I
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  engraved inside. And she took the ring off and
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  read This too shall pass. Notice what he didn't do.
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  He didn't tell her the sadness was small.
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  He gave her something to wear as a reminder.
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  That's what zooming out is for. Not to shrink the pain, but to
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  be reminded that you'll still be standing when it's done.
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  And then you zoom back in. Because the Sequoia didn't
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  survive the fire by studying its own cross section, it survived
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  by growing the next ring and then another.
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  However, perspective without action is just a nicer view of
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  the same mess. So zoom out long enough to
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  believe you'll make it. Then come back down to today and
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  do the one thing in front of you.
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  Get out of bed, take the walk, make the call, do the next right
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  thing. That's the ring you're growing
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  today. The better story to tell
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  yourself is I zoom out to know I'll survive and I zoom in to
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  grow the next ring. Tell me a story of a season you
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  survived to from chadsmith@gmail.com and send a
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  text to someone who's in the fire and tell them you can
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  survive this. You can get a free copy of my
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  book, The Most Powerful Story in the World, by going to from
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  chad.gumroad.com. The transcript of this message
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  and hundreds of others are always available at
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  www.fromchad.com.