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152. A Potent Medicine: Purpose · 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.
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Impact. Hello, hope you've been having
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an awesome week. Thanks for tuning into the
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Impact Ready podcast and being here today.
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I want to talk about purpose and not just the generalized idea of
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purpose, but kind of getting into the nitty gritty of what it
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is and why it actually matters to us to be tapped into this
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sometimes elusive term that people try to wrap their brains
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around. If there's one thing that every
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single person in any room that you go into has in common, it's
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that we all face challenges and nobody is exempt from that.
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We know that you've seen it. I'm seeing it a lot right now in
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my friends, in my family, in my clients, in my patients.
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It's it's weird. It's kind of things tend to
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happen in waves, in seasons. It's I don't know what it is.
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I don't know what astrological sign is in line with what moon
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or I have no idea how this all works, but I've been noticing a
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lot that people are coming to me with stuff that's big, like big
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heavy life stuff. And so they're facing a lot of
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challenge. And the thing that connects all
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those people and in the community that we're in, in your
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inner circle, is that we're all humans and no one gets to escape
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the struggles that life can throw at us.
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You can't avoid it. It's part of this lived
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experience, and I think it's important to realize because
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we're not all that different from each other.
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Life is a great equalizer, as my mom used to say to me.
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I know many of you have experienced that, and some of
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you might be experiencing it right now in your own space with
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your spouse or your kids or your family.
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You're cruising along, things are going pretty well.
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You feel like you have things pretty under control and then
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life shows up and it just hands you something that's completely
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unexpected and a challenge that you never saw coming.
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That's something that happened to me nine months ago, our
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family and myself going through something we never thought we'd
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have to face again, which is a breast cancer diagnosis.
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And it can feel incredibly daunting to face this stuff head
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on. But, and this is the reason why
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I want to talk about this, we also have to recognize that even
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though there are difficult seasons, they're not what define
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us. Rather, it's how we're going to
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respond and rise up through the difficult season that does.
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It's how we face the challenge that defines us.
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And so I have a question for you.
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In your last struggle, whatever you might have been dealing
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with, what kept you steady when your life felt overwhelming or
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the circumstances that you were going through felt like just too
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much? What kept you grounded or
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feeling strong when you were facing a lot of uncertainty?
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Or what kept you on track with your stuff, your progress, your
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work, your life? Feeling ease or peace when you
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were under a lot of pressure or when you're in the middle of
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struggle or something that might be just tragically hard for me.
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And I've thought about this question a lot.
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I think about it in dark nights when things feel really heavy,
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but for me the answer is, and has been for a long time,
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Purpose. And purpose to me isn't some
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theoretical or abstract idea that sounds nice or pretty.
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It is the foundation that has kept me standing when everything
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else has felt shaky around me. And I would have ventured a
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guess that you probably have had conversations about purpose in
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the past, whether it's with coach or in some self
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development class, sometimes even in health class, we're
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talking about purpose. But at some point in your life,
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somebody has asked you what is your purpose in life?
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And then for a lot of us, that purpose has probably changed at
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some point along the way. And for a lot of you, you might
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still be waiting for that like lightning to strike you and you
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to have crystal clarity on what the hell you're doing here.
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And that is totally fine. That is OK.
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I think purpose can feel mysterious and elusive so often
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to people. I used to think that it was
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something that I had to define with very hard and fast lines.
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And if I did that, then my life would all come together for me.
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Like if I had this very structured, rigid, articulate
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purpose that I could write on a paper in 10 seconds, then
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everything would take it would come together.
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And now I kind of threw all that out.
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Now, I think of purpose simply as something that feels bigger
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than me, something that feels bigger than us, something that
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causes us to feel fulfilled in our life or something that feels
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meaningful to us. And it could be our work.
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It could be being of service or creating something or being a
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parent or being a partner or, you know, being in certain
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relationships. But this sense of purpose is
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really important to us. Why?
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Why does it matter so much? Because we as humans, we want to
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feel like there's some significance to this life.
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Humans want things to feel meaningful.
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It's a deep core desire, actually, to feel like our life
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matters. It's such a deep core human
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desire and a core human need that people who don't feel
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connected to purpose, they report more frequent feelings of
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apathy and depression and loneliness and existential angst
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when they're not feeling that connection to their life.
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We want our experiences here to matter.
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We want to have an impact. We want to feel like there's
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some significance to all of this, and I truly believe there
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is. I do believe that we have a
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purpose being here on earth. What people so often miss is
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that we have the ability to assign significance to things in
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our life. Remember, it's not simply the
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challenge that we face, the difficult stuff that we face.
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It's how we respond to it. Because there are a lot of ways
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that a person can handle struggle.
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It can become our suffering. We can let it take us down
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mentally, physically, emotionally.
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We can rail at the world for being unjust or unfair.
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We can become bitter, cynical. I see that a lot.
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We can become a smaller version of ourselves.
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I see that a lot. Or we can use it.
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We can use the struggle. We can let it show us some new
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perspectives or some new views of our deeper inner strength
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that we didn't know we had or we've never really had to tap
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into. It might show us the kind of
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community and scaffolding that we have around us and let it
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show us some new paths that we could take in life that we
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didn't see before, we couldn't see.
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The point is, we have a choice team.
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We have a choice in how we see it, and the difference between
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these two paths, or choices between drifting through
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hardship versus rising up and being buoyant through it, comes
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down to this one thing in my mind.
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And it comes down to purpose. People with a clear sense of
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purpose are more resilient, they're more adaptable, and
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they're more hopeful even in their hardest moments.
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And the research backs that up. But I bet you can see that in
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your own life. If you think about somebody who
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feels very purposeful, feel is really passionate about what
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they do in their life, I guarantee you would also say
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that they're all those things resilient, adaptable, hopeful.
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I often think about our relationship with this idea of
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purpose like a tree, a tree that has deep roots that can
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withstand any storm that comes at us.
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Purpose is what deepens the roots.
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And I think as a side product of that, with deep roots, we can
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grow tall, we can be steadfast, and that allows us to see above
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all the fray. It's like if that tree grows
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really large and tall, your vantage point is totally
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different. And it allows you to see
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possibility beyond what is currently here, our current
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circumstances that we're living in right now.
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And there are a few things that I've learned over the years
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about purpose that I think is important to share.
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The first thing is that purpose is really personal.
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It doesn't have to be the same for everybody.
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You don't have to decide on something that sounds really
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moral or ethical, but purpose can be so personal to you and
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make no sense to somebody else. The second thing is that purpose
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is an ever changing, evolving driving force, and we have to
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allow it the freedom to redefine itself as life redefines us and
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reshapes us. It's like a living, breathing
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thing, this idea of purpose. By definition, it's having
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something that you're invested and engaged in that's bigger
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than you. And when you have that thing,
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when you can pour energy into something that's bigger than
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your problems and your own suffering, you don't get
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swallowed up as easily by that suffering.
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It doesn't mean you don't feel the struggle.
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You can still feel it. You can still have fear and
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emotions that come up around circumstances.
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In fact, this past year there were so many moments where I
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could feel fear rising up in me. I for me, fear is a very
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visceral experience. I, my hands get very tingly, my
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face gets numb. I can, I can feel the panic
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right on the edge. Such deep fear that can come up
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in some of the darkest moments of our life.
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Some of it's totally irrational fear, like worst case scenario
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stuff that would never happen. Some of it is logistical fear,
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like how am I going to show up or do the things that I need to
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do, or how is this going to work out?
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How am I going to earn money? How do I care for my family?
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All of those logistical fears that we have, some of it is fear
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that we'll lose ourselves. We'll lose our identity.
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This happens a lot when people get hurt or injured or, you
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know, they are going through an illness and the body gets weak.
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How do I, who am I? You know, how do I participate
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in this life that I've created for myself?
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And then some of the fear is just old fear.
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It's fear that exists because we've seen things in our life.
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We have stories and experiences and wisdom from growing up that
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can feel very old. But the point is, the fear can
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show up in a lot of different ways.
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And I'm sure that you've had that experience in your life
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before. Or maybe just deep overwhelm or
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crazy fatigue or grief feelings where you feel like you're on
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the edge and things could kind of fray apart if you're not
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careful. But I take myself back to that
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question from before. What do you do when the rug gets
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absolutely pulled out from underneath you?
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What do you do? How do you stay grounded?
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And again, I come back to this idea of you lean in to purpose.
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It's funny because back in March when I got this breast cancer
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diagnosis, one of the first things that came up in my head
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was I, I don't have time for this.
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I literally thought to myself, I don't have time.
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I can't let this get me down. I have too much to do.
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I have a family to show up for. I have a message that I really
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want to get out into the world. I have work that I really love.
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I'm really invested in this. I have so many projects that I'm
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excited about, and I'm so thankful for that.
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I'm so thankful that that was one of the thoughts that came up
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in my mind because it was one of the things that kept me tethered
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to the ground when things felt like I was sort of sleepwalking
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through my life. It was purpose in my work and
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the people that I love that really kept me grounded.
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And so I want to leave you with three things to remember about
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purpose so that you can start to utilize these ideas right now in
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your life with whatever you're struggling with.
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The first thing is that our purpose is part of our
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resilience and our ability to rise up through the challenge.
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There is no stopping life. We know that it's going to
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happen. We're all going to face
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challenge and suffering. It's part of our evolution.
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We wouldn't want it any other way.
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But all of that struggle doesn't have to equate to suffering.
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We can be in choice. So really remember that number
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one. Number two, purpose helps keep
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you from getting lost. Because when we're in stress, we
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can get hyper focused on the details of ourselves, our small
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world, our material environment. We get like really controlling
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and grabbing on and grasping on to the things around US.
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Purpose keeps us buoyant team. It's the reminder that this
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stuff is not the be all end all and that we have the ability to
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get through things that are hard.
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I think that when we lose our sense of meaning and purpose,
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that's when we can really get lost.
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And then the third and last thing is that purpose will keep
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us standing in our power. And you know, I love talking
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about power because when we are standing in power, that means
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that we have access to all the high frequency stuff that we
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want, like gratitude and hope and creativity and teamwork and
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joy. And often when we're going
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through a struggle, fear is the thing that comes up.
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And fear is just one of the quickest ways to shut off our
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power. Purpose is the potent medicine
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against it, against fear. And there's something really
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beautiful about that because the more we can step into our
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personal power, the more impact we can have.
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And the reason we care about that is because our impact has
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ripple effects beyond what we'll ever know.
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And I've been saying this to myself over and over the past
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year. Move despite the fear, Steph,
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move despite the fear. And I'll just, I'll say it to
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you right now, please move despite the fear, even if you
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have hard things going on in your life, because I guarantee
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you have such a powerful impact and you create ripple effects
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and the world needs those. I always find a lot of hope in
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this conversation because just as we're all connected by the
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fact that we're going to face challenge in life, we're also
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all connected by our ability to find purpose and something
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bigger than ourselves. We think it's some elusive thing
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or something that's hard to find or, or define in our life, but
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really it's just about connecting to your greater why,
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your personal why for what you do.
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And right now, we have this opportunity to reconnect to our
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personal why and think about what it is that we care about,
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what matters to us and what is the vision for where we want to
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be going. If we can reconnect to that and
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dig in a little bit, that's what will get us through.
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That is what is going to help us weather the storms the next
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holiday season, the next year, whatever it might be for you.
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And even though I don't know exactly what that is, I truly
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believe in your ability to use whatever that challenges.
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I believe that humans can shift our mindset from feeling like
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the victim in their life to feeling like the creator of
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their life. And I know that you have enough
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grit to be able to move despite the fear.
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So even if life is going to keep challenging you, you don't just
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have to survive it. You can rise up through that and
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just become a a different, more unstoppable version of yourself.
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So I hope that this encourages you and helps remind you that no
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matter what is happening, you have tools and you have the
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ability to connect to your purpose to help get you through.
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I appreciate you being here and listening.
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I hope that you have an awesome weekend.
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Thank you for being here and 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.
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Impact and recognize that you are powerful.
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By elevating our energy and awareness, we can create
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exponential change in this life. If you enjoyed today's insights,
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share them with a friend and subscribe.
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To the show for more I truly. Appreciate you.
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Thanks again for being here.