Latest / From Chad / Noticing #1182

Transcript

Noticing #1182 · From Chad

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  It started by noticing a backpack.
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  There's a story behind that. This is your daily message from
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  Chad #1182 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 Jasper Steinmetz.
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  Here's the upgrade. You notice things every day, but
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  upgraded thinking is the kind that gets up and walks toward
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  it. Here's the story.
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  A few months ago, Jasper Steinmetz was walking a trail in
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  Austin, TX when he passed by a man carrying a worn red Indiana
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  University backpack. Jasper is an IU graduate.
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  He passed 1000 strangers on that trail and kept walking past
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  every one of them. This time he stopped though.
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  He introduced himself, learned the man's name, Samson James.
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  Something about it stuck with him.
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  So that night he searched it online and what came back
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  confirmed his hunch. He had heard Sampson's name
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  before. Samson James had been a running
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  back at Indiana, a four-star recruit out of high school His
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  freshman year in 2019, he ran for over 100 yards and a
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  touchdown against Purdue. Then a knee injury.
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  Then a diagnosis nobody saw coming.
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  Then eventually, months with no place to sleep in a city where
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  he didn't know a single soul. Jasper didn't have a plan to fix
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  any of that. What he had was a backpack he
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  recognized. In a decision to make about it,
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  he started a GoFundMe. He reached out to former IU
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  players, guys who'd worn the same jersey years apart, never
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  having met Mike Kadik, Peyton Hindershot.
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  Aaron Casey. CJ West.
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  The money came in $20,000 in all.
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  Not because of the backpack, because a stranger decided that
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  recognizing someone obligates you to do something about it.
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  That fundraiser paid for an apartment, clothes, food,
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  furniture, a phone, a way to start over.
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  None of it happens if Jasper notices the backpack and keeps
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  walking, which is what most of us do most days.
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  With most people. The backpack just made a
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  stranger story visible for one second.
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  What Jasper did with that one second is what made the
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  difference. I'm guessing you may have
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  noticed something recently. You passed people like that.
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  Somebody wearing a signal you'd recognize if you slowed down
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  enough to look. A shirt from a hometown.
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  A hard week written on someone's face.
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  The question was never whether you'd notice.
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  You notice plenty. The question is what you do in
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  the three seconds after. The better story to tell
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  yourself is noticing is the invitation walking over is the
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  answer. Tell me a story of a prompt that
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  led to an interaction to from chadsmith@gmail.com.
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  Send someone a text and tell them I saw something today that
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  reminded me of you. 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.