Latest / From Chad / Launching #1137

Transcript

Launching #1137 · From Chad

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  He taught about the same river for 30 years.
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  Then at retirement, he built a boat and got in it.
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  There's a story behind that. This is your daily message from
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  Chandmer 1137 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 Chip Phillips.
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  Here's the upgrade. You may know the river by heart,
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  but upgraded thinking knows that knowing the river and riding in
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  it are two different lives. Here's the story.
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  Chip Phillips spent his career as a high school English
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  teacher. For decades, one of the books he
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  taught was The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
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  Mark Twain's story of a boy, a raft in the great Brown River
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  running down the middle of the country.
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  He taught the Mississippi. He diagrammed it on the board.
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  He explained the pull of the current, the freedom of the
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  raft, the meaning of the water. Year after year, class after
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  class, he stood at the front of the room and talked about the
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  river. And then he retired.
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  Most people, when they finally put down the chalk, put down the
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  dream with it. Chip did the opposite.
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  He went out in his yard, and with his own hands he built a
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  houseboat. He named her the Northern Sun.
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  And one morning he pushed off from Hannibal, MO, Mark Twain's
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  own hometown, and floated down the Mississippi.
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  Not as a Lesson plan, not as a unit on symbolism, as a man
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  finally living inside the thing you'd spent 30 years only
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  pointing at. Chip knew everything about that
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  water already. He'd read every chapter, taught
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  every theme, answered every question a 16 year old could
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  throw at him. Knowledge was never his problem.
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  Getting in the boat was there's something that you've studied
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  for years, some river you can describe better than almost
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  anyone. You know the theory of the
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  marriage you want, the business you'd start, the book you'd
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  write, the life you'd keep sketching in your head.
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  You've explained it to other people.
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  You could teach a class on it. Stop teaching the river.
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  Get in the boat. For Chip, his love for
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  literature became his lived experience.
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  What's the shift for you? The better story to tell
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  yourself is I don't have to read about an adventure when I'm
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  living it. Tell me a story of launching to
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  from chadsmith@gmail.com. Send someone a text and ask them
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  what's the boat you keep describing but never board.
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  You get a free copy of my book, The Most Powerful Story in the
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  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.