Latest / Impact Ready / 198. Perseverance, Patience, and the Long-Term Growth Most People Give Up On

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198. Perseverance, Patience, and the Long-Term Growth Most People Give Up On · 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 impact.
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  Hello team. Welcome to the show today.
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  You know, this week, all this week, I am doing my very last
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  level of this specific executive coaching certification with
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  Matone Global and I'm so excited about it.
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  It's been awesome, incredible people that I've got to work
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  with and coach with. And all four days this week, I'm
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  been waking up at 4:30 and hopping on a Zoom to meet my
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  colleagues to start at 5:00 AM. They're all over the world and
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  we get to discuss and learn from each other about all these
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  different tools and assessments to use in executive coaching.
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  So I'm jacked. I'm having an awesome week.
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  And it's really cool to be able to get together with a group of
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  people from all over the world because you get to expose
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  yourself to different perspectives, different ways of
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  living. You get to hear what life is
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  like in Beirut and Luxembourg and Cyprus and Baltimore.
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  One of my colleagues this week, he's actually in Beirut and he
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  reminded us today during a discussion about potential.
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  He reminded us about the parable, the story of the
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  Chinese bamboo tree. Now, I don't know if you've ever
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  heard the story, but if you have 3 minutes to get pumped up in
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  your day, look up the story of the Chinese bamboo tree told by
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  Les Brown. You can go to YouTube and find
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  it in two seconds. It's incredibly fun to watch and
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  it's only three minutes. It's a great way to start your
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  day. But I want to tell it to you
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  now. This is a very common parable,
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  and it's about a type of bamboo plant that grows in the eastern
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  part of the world, the Chinese bamboo tree.
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  Now, the thing about the Chinese bamboo tree is that it takes
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  five years to grow. It takes five years to grow, but
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  it's not until the 5th year that the plant even breaks through
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  the ground and it needs to be regularly watered, fertilized
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  the whole time without ever showing any signs of growth.
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  Once it starts to breakthrough the ground, it can grow over 90
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  feet tall in five to six weeks. So picture this.
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  You've got these seeds that you planted in the ground, Chinese
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  bamboo tree. And every day you're going out
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  and you're watering these seeds. And every month you're
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  fertilizing the ground where those seeds lay.
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  And every week people are coming over and they're watching you.
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  They're watching you water this patch of dirt.
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  And you can imagine what the scene looks like.
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  You have people come by saying, hey, what are you doing?
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  And you're like, oh, well, I'm watering my Chinese bamboo tree.
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  And they're looking at the ground and they say, but there's
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  nothing there. And you say, oh, I know it's
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  going to start growing. It's in there.
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  I just have to take care of it. And people look at you and
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  they're like, OK, sure. Yeah.
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  And then a year or two later, those people come around again
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  and they say, well, what are you doing?
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  And you're saying, well, I'm tending to and nurturing my
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  Chinese bamboo tree. And they say, what?
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  You've been doing this for how many years?
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  And that's all you have to show for it.
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  There's nothing there. And this continues.
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  You're tending to the tree. You're doing the daily watering,
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  you're fertilizing, you're nurturing the dream of this
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  tree. And you might have people coming
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  around saying, what are you doing, man?
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  What a waste of time. There's nothing there.
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  You're just watering dirt. What do you even have to show
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  for all this work that you're putting in?
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  And this is where a lot of people quit.
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  They walk away from the dream. They quit trying to do the thing
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  they've been wanting to do for so long, whether it's writing a
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  book or starting a company or becoming a parent or finding a
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  partner or growing a Chinese bamboo tree.
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  But for the people that don't quit and they keep watering
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  every day, they get to that fifth year and all of a sudden
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  the bamboo breaks through the ground.
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  And suddenly it starts growing rapidly week after week until by
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  the 5th week, that bamboo is 80 feet tall.
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  And now guess what's happening? I know you've experienced this
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  before. People are coming up to you
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  saying, oh, man, I knew you had it.
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  What an awesome tree. I was supporting you all along.
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  I think I'm going to grow a Chinese bamboo tree too.
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  Or they're saying, man, you must have gotten lucky growing that
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  tree. Look how fast that happened for
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  you. And the question becomes, was it
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  fast? Did that tree grow in five weeks
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  or did it grow in five years? And the answer is really
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  obvious. The Chinese bamboo tree grew in
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  five years, not 5 weeks, because at any point during the last
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  five years, if you had stopped watering that tree or
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  fertilizing it, it would have starved.
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  It would have starved the plant, and the dream would have been
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  dead in the ground. Those last five weeks were just
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  the end of the cycle. And during all those years
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  prior, that bamboo was laying down deep, extensive roots, a
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  widespread system, deeper than most trees and most plants.
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  So elaborate, so solid. If you've ever tried to kill
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  bamboo, you know how absolutely insanely hard it is.
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  And that's how the world can be. It's a perfect analogy for what
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  it feels like to bring your dream to life sometimes.
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  Every day you're out there watering the dream, you're
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  fertilizing it every month, and year after year goes by where
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  you might not see the kind of evidence that you'd like to see
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  of the fruition of that dream. And there's going to be hard
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  times when you look around and there's nobody to be found,
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  nobody there supporting you, nobody cheering you on, saying,
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  yeah, good job watering, good job.
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  I know we don't see anything yet, but I believe in you.
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  You know what, it's going to come.
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  Sometimes it's just you. Sometimes you have people saying
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  negative things. We've all had hard times like
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  that where we are watering and tending to our dreams and we're
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  not seeing anything coming out of it.
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  In everyday life. It looks like struggling to make
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  a payroll, or having to learn a totally new technology, or
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  getting up every day at 5:00 AM to write your book.
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  It might look like going through struggles of parenting a
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  teenager, praying that they become this amazing adult you'd
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  hope them to be. It looks like doing the work on
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  your marriage so you can stay connected when the jobs get busy
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  or the kids leave the house. It looks like training every
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  week for six months so you can run your first marathon or lose
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  that £50 that has been giving you chronic illness.
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  It can be really hard to not get discouraged some days it can be
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  really hard to not let other people's words of discouragement
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  get to you. But there's something that
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  people love about this parable because there's something really
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  inspiring about the level of commitment and dedication to
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  that dream. That level of knowing within
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  yourself that you are capable and that you are growing your
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  potential to shoot up at any given moment.
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  And there is something incredibly awesome and really
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  sweet about a hard earned victory.
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  Les Brown talks about it. Think about how it feels to look
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  back in your life and see your big wins and to think about what
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  you poured into those wins, those dreams, what you learned,
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  what you gained, how much you grew.
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  That's pretty incredible. It's an amazing feeling to know
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  that I persevered and I did this thing.
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  The person you become in the process of pursuing a dream is
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  far more important than ever. Reaching the dream, you learned
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  to demonstrate the qualities of being an impactful person.
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  You get to practice preparation and consistency.
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  You lead with your purpose, showing up every day for that
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  dream. You become very resilient to the
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  noise of the world. You have to bring up this grit
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  in yourself when things get hard, and then of course, you
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  build confidence as a result because you can look back and
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  see all the evidence of the things that you've overcome.
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  That's the person that I would want on my team any day because
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  that's a person of impact. Let me pause here for a second.
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  If you're listening and thinking I'm capable of more or this is
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  the level I want to operate at, this is for you.
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  I work privately with a small number of high performing
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  leaders who are ready to elevate how they show up in their
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  business and in their lives. This isn't motivational
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  coaching, it's precision work. We refine your energy,
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  strengthen your ownership, and eliminate inconsistency so your
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  impact becomes undeniable. If you're ready for that level
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  of growth, book a private call through the link in the show
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  notes. We'll see if it's a fit.
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  All right, back to the episode. The reality is, so many people
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  are never going to be willing to tend to a dream in this way.
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  They'll never be willing to do the daily watering and
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  fertilizing. They'll never choose that
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  consistency of five years to see growth.
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  Those are the same people who want to say that other people
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  get lucky, but the reality is just that they haven't seen the
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  years of tending to our dreams that will come before the actual
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  shooting up of those bamboo stalks.
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  So whatever dream you're watering right now, I want you
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  to know that there are other people who are tending their own
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  Chinese bamboo trees. And they get you.
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  They understand you. They'll pass by you standing on
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  your little patch of empty dirt, watering the ground, and they
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  will give you a knowing nod because you are not alone.
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  And no, not everyone will see the evidence of the work that
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  you're doing. They won't be the one standing
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  outside with you watering the bamboo.
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  They might not even be cheering you on.
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  But you will be the person who gets the outcomes that you want
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  in your life. And along the way, you'll
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  develop the courage and the wisdom to do it again.
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  What a gift. So I hope this encourages you
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  today. Short and sweet.
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  I hope you have an incredible week.
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  Thank you for being here. And as always, thank you for
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  being ready to Impact. Thanks for listening to Impact
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  Ready. I hope today's episode inspired
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  you to own your 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 to the show for more.
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  I truly appreciate you. Thanks again for being here.