Latest / The Strategize, Adapt, and Overcome Podcast by Brad Young / The Unified Warrior: Weaving Strategy, Discipline, and Wisdom Into One Way of Living

Transcript

The Unified Warrior: Weaving Strategy, Discipline, and Wisdom Into One Way of Living · The Strategize, Adapt, and Overcome Podcast by Brad Young

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Good morning, and welcome back to strategize, adapt, and overcome.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I am brad young, and I am genuinely glad you
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: are here with me today because this is the one
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: that pulls the whole journey together. Let me start with
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: a question, and I want you to sit with it, honestly,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: because nobody here's your answer. But you Have you ever
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: known everything you needed to know and still done nothing
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: with it? Have you ever held all the right ideas
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: in your head, the good habits, the smart strategies, the
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: deep truths, and yet somehow your actual life did not
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: match a single one of them. You knew what to do,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: you just were not being it. Take a real second
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: with that, because that gap, the space between what a
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: person knows and who a person actually is, is the
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: entire subject of today. We have walked a long road
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: together across this series. We learned the patience of the
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: warrior who waits for the right moment. We face the
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: enemy inside our own heads. We learned to bend like
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: water when everything changes. We mastered the art of the unseen.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: We learned to read our ground before the fight. We
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: learned that no warrior wins alone. We learned that discipline
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: beats motivation. We learned how to lose without being destroyed.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: We lifted our eyes to the horizon and learned to
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: see the battle before it arrives. And last time, we
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: looked past our own lifetime and learned to plant a
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: forest instead of building a monument. Today we take all
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: of it, every single piece, and we weave it into
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: one thing, one way of living. Today we become the
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: unified warrior. So Sue understood something that most people who
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: study strategy completely miss. He did not teach a pile
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: of separate tricks to pull out one at a time.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: He taught a whole mind, a complete way of seeing
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: and moving through the world, where every principle flowed into
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: every other one. He wrote that the skilled warrior takes
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: his stand on ground where he cannot be defeated. And
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: this stand was never one tactic, It was the sun
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: of everything he was. That is the mind we are
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: building today, the mind where all the pieces finally become one.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: So let us get into it. Here's the first truth
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: I need you to sit with today. Knowledge scattered is
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: almost useless. Knowledge unified is unstoppable. Most people collect wisdom
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: the way some people collect tools. They never use. They
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: have a drawer full of good ideas, and every idea
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: sits there alone, disconnected from the rest, gathering dust. They
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: know they should be patient, but they panic under pressure.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: They know they should be disciplined, but they wait for motivation.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: They know they should think long term, but they live
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: entirely in the moment right in front of them. The
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: ideas are all correct, they are just not connected, and
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: because they are not connected, they do not hold any
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: weight when life actually leans on them. Think about a
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: single thread. One thread is weak, you can snap it
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: between two fingers without even trying. But weave a thousand
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: threads together, each one crossing and supporting the others, and
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: you get a rope strong enough to hold the weight
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: of a ship against a storm. The thread did not
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: become stronger, it became connected. That is the whole difference.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: The unified warrior is not the person with the most ideas.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: He is the person whose ideas are woven together into
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: something that can actually carry weight. Which one are you
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: right now? Are you a drawer full of good ideas
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: that never touch each other, or are you weaving your
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: knowledge into a rope that can hold your life together
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: when the storm comes and let me bring this out
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: of the metaphor and into a real life, because this
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: is where it truly matters. I want to tell you
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: a story. I'm going to change some of the details
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: to protect the people in it. But this happened, and
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: it has stayed with me for years. I once knew
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: two people who had studied the same thing, so the
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: same books, same teachers, same ideas, sitting in the same
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: rooms at the same time. And we will call the
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: first one the collector. And the collector was brilliant, Honestly,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: he could talk about any prins, pnciple you named. He
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: knew the strategies, he knew the philosophy. He could explain
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: patience and discipline and vision better than almost anyone I've
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: ever met. If you sat across from him at dinner,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: you would walk away certain you had just met a
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: wise man. But here's what happened when life actually tested him.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: The Collector fell apart under pressure. All that beautiful knowledge
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: scattered like leaves in the wind. He knew he should
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: be patient, and he rushed anyway. He knew he should
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: stay calm, and he let his emotions run the show.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: He knew he should think In years and he made
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: panic decisions to soothe the fear of a single bad afternoon.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: All the wisdom was in his head, and none of
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: it was in his hands. He had collected the ideas,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: but he had never once woven them into who he was.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: So when the weight came down, he had a drawer
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: full of threads and not a single rope, and the
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: thread snapped one by one exactly when he needed them
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: to hold. Now let me tell you about the second one.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: We will call him the weaver. And the weaver was
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: not necessarily smarter than the collector. In some ways he
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: knew less, but he did something the collector never bothered
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: to do. He took each idea and he practiced it
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: until it stopped being an idea and became a part
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: of him. He practiced patience on small things until patience
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: was simply who he was. He practiced discipline on ordinary mornings,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: until showing up was no longer a decision but a reflex.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: He practiced staying calm and little frustration, so that when
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: the big storm arrived, calm was already woven into his hands.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: He did not just know the principles, he wove them,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: day after day into the fabric of his own character.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: And here's what happened when life tested him. He held
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: when the pressure came down hard, he did not scatter,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: because everything in him was connected. His patient supported his discipline,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: His discipline supported his vision, His wisdom about himself kept
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: his emotions from the show. Each principle held up the
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: others the way threads in a rope hold each other
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: against the pool. He did not have to reach into
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: a drawer and hunt for the right idea in the
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: middle of the storm. He simply was the idea. All
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: of them at once woven into one steady, unbreakable way
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: of being. Same books and same teachers, same ideas. One
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: collected them and snapped under the first real weight. One
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: wove them and held through the storm. That is the
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: difference between knowing and being, and it is one of
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: the most important differences there is. So ask yourself, honestly,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: which one are you right now? The collector full of
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: wisdom that scatters when it counts, or the weaver, patiently
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: turning what you know into who you are now. I
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: want to break this down into something you can actually use,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: because becoming the unified warrior is not some mystical achievement
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  Speaker 1: reserved for the few. It is a way of living,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: and any of us can build it starting today. The
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: first thing you have to understand is that wisdom must
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: move from your head into your hands. Knowing a principle
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: and living a principle are two entirely different things, separated
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: by one bridge, and that bridge is practice. You do
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: not become patient by understanding patients. You become patient by
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: practicing it over and over in the small moments, until
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: it wears a groove into your character. The Stoics understood
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: this deeply. They insisted that philosophy was never meant to
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: be a subject you discussed. It was meant to be
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: a life you lived. The philosopher Epictetis told his students
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: to stop merely talking about how a good person should behave,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: and to simply be that person. Do not describe the
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: principle embody it, because a principle you only talk about
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  Speaker 1: as a thread, and a principle you actually live is
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: a strand of the rope. So take the ideas you
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: already know, the ones you have been nodding along to
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: for years, and start putting them into your hands. Practice
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: the patience on the small delay that annoys you. Practice
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: the calm on the little frustration that would normally set
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: you off. Practice the discipline on the ordinary morning when
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: no one is watching. Every time you move a principle
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: from your head into your hands, you weave one more
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: thread into the rope, and the rope gets stronger than
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: you realize. The second thing you have to understand is
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: that the principles are meant to support each other, not
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: stand alone. This is where the unified warrior separates himself
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: from everyone else. Most people use one principle at a time,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: like pulling a single tool out of a box, but
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: in a real life, under real pressure, the principles are
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: supposed to work together, each one holding up the others.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Your patience protects your discipline because the patience keeps you
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: from quitting before the discipline has time to pay off.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Your discipline protects your vision because discipline is what carries
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  Speaker 1: you towards the horizon on the days you cannot feel it.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Your wisdom about yourself protects your relationships because knowing your
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: own triggers keeps you from wounding the people who stand
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: beside you. Nothing stands alone. Everything holds everything else. Soun
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: su understood this completely. He never treated timing and terrain
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  Speaker 1: and deception and alliances as separate lessons. He wove them
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: into one seamless art, where reading the ground and formed
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: the timing and the timing shape the deception and the
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: alliance has protected the whole campaign. The genius was never
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: in any single piece. The genius was in how the
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: pieces became one. And your life works exactly the same way.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: The strength is not in your patience alone, or your
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: discipline alone, or your vision alone. The strength is in
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  Speaker 1: how they all lean on each other, so that when
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  Speaker 1: one is tested, the others hold it up. The third
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  Speaker 1: thing you have to understand is that a unified life
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  Speaker 1: is a peaceful life. This is the reward that makes
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  Speaker 1: all the practice worth it, and it is one most
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  Speaker 1: people never taste. When you're scattered, you live in a constant,
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  Speaker 1: quiet war with yourself. And when you know what you
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: should do and you do something else, and the gap
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: between the two grinds away at you day after day,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: that gap is exhausting. It is the source of so
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: much of the restlessness and the shame and the low
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: humming dissatisfaction that follows people around who cannot understand why
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: they are not at peace, and the answer is almost
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: always the same. They are divided, they're knowing and their
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: being are at war. But when you weave it all together,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: when who you are finally matches what you know, that
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: war ends. The Stoics called this state a kind of
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: inner harmony, a life lived in agreement with itself and
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: with nature. Marcus Aurelius wrote about the deep calm that
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: comes to a person whose actions and beliefs are finally won,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: who no longer has to argue with himself about what
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: is right because he simply does it. That is not
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: just success, That is peace. The unified warrior is not
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: only more effective in the world world, he is more
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: at rest inside himself because he has stopped living at
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: odds with his own wisdom. The war inside is over,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: and that quiet is worth more than almost anything you
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: could ever win on the outside. So let me give
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: you something practical to carry out of here today, because
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: I never want to just fill your head with ideas
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: and send you off with nothing to actually do with them.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Here's your framework for this week. Three moves. Run them
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: and watch your scattered knowledge begin to weave itself into
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  Speaker 1: one strong rope. The first move is to pick one
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: principle and practice it in the small moments. Do not
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: try to master everything at once. That is exactly how
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: people stay scattered. Instead, choose one single principle you already
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: know but do not yet live. Maybe it is patience,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Maybe it is calm under pressure. Maybe it is following
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: through on your word, and this week practice it on
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: the smallest, most ordinary moments. You can find the little delay,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: the minor irritation, the tiny promise to yourself. Because you
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: do not weave the rope in the storm, you weave
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: it in the small moments, one thread at a time,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: so that the rope is already strong when the storm
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: finally arrives. The second move is to catch your knowing
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: and being at war and close the gap. This week,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: pay close attention to the moments when you know one
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: thing and do another. When you know you should stay
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: calm and you feel yourself heating up, when you know
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: you should be patient and you feel yourself rushing, Do
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: not judge yourself for it. Just notice it, name it,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: and in that exact moment, choose to close the gap
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: by one inch. Do the thing you know instead of
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: the thing you feel. Every time you close that gap
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: even a little, You move one more piece of wisdom
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: from your head into your hands, and you end one
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: small skirmish in the war with yourself. The third move
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: is to connect two principles on purpose. Take two of
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: the ideas we have built across this series and deliberately
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: use them together this week. Let your patients feed your discipline,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Let your knowledge of your own triggers protect one of
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: your relationships. Let your long view carry you through a
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: moment you would normally react to feel how one principle
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: holds up the other, how they are stronger together. Then
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: either is alone. Because the moment you feel two principles
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: working is one you have stopped being a collector of
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: threads and started being a weaver of rope. And once
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: you feel that, you will never want to go back
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: to living scattered again. Practice one principle in the small moments,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: catch your knowing and being at war and close the gap.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Connect two principles on purpose. That is how you stop
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: collecting wisdom and start becoming it. Now, I want to
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: say something important before we close, because I never want
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: this to be twisted into something that is not becoming.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: The unified warrior is not about achieving some flawless, finished
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: state where you never slip and never scatter again. That
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: person does not exist, and chasing him will only make
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: you miserable. The weaving never truly ends. You will always
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: find a loose thread, a principle you know but are
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: not yet living, a gap between your knowing and your being.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: That is not failure, That is simply being a human
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: being who is still growing. The stoics never claim to
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: have arrived. They called themselves students to the very end,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: practicing every single day, precisely because they knew the work
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: was never finished. So do not demand perfection of yourself,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: demand practice. Demand that you keep weaving, keep closing the gaps,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: keep turning what you know into who you are, one
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: ordinary day at a time. The unified warrior is not
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: the one who has finished. He is the one who
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: never stops weaving. Let me leave you with this before
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: we go. The world is full of people who know
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: exactly what they should do. They can quote the wisdom,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: they can explain the strategies. They can tell you all
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: about patience and discipline and vision and legacy, and they
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: can do it beautifully, and yet their lives do not
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: match a single word of it, because they collected the
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: ideas and never once wove them into who they are.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Zansu knew twenty five centuries ago that the strategist wins
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: by being complete, by taking his stand on ground where
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: all his principles hold each other up and he cannot
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: be defeated. The stoics knew that wisdom was never meant
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: to be spoken, was meant to be lived, woven so
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: deeply into a person that they're knowing and their being
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: finally became one. And you already know more than enough
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: to change your life. That was never your problem. Your problem,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: like almost everyone's problem, was that the knowing lived in
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: your head while your life was lived by something else entirely.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: But that ends now. Starting today, you become the weaver.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: You take the wisdom you have care marad all this time,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: and one thread at a time, in the small and
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: ordinary moments, you weave it into the fabric of who
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: you are, until your patience and your discipline and your
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: vision and your wisdom are no longer separate ideas you
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: reach for, but a single, unbreakable way of being that
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: holds you steady no matter what storm comes. That is
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: the unified warrior, not the one who knows the most,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: but the one whose life and wisdom have finally become
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: the same thing. And when you get there, you will
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: find something better than victory waiting for you. You will find peace,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: the quiet, settled peace of a person who is no
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: longer at war with himself because who he is and
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: what he knows have finally become one. So this week,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: pick one principle and practice it small. Catch the war
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: between your knowing and your being and close the gap
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: by an inch, and connect two principles on purpose until
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: you feel them holding each other up. Because the person
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: you are becoming is not built learning one more thing.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: He is built by finally living the things you already know.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for spending this time with me today,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: and thank you for walking this long road through the
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: whole series with me. If this episode reached something in you,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: do me a favor and share it with someone who
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: knows all the right things but has been struggling to
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: live them, someone who needs to hear that the answer
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: is not more knowledge, but weaving what they already know
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: into who they are. And make sure you follow the show,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: because we are just getting started. In our next episode.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: We take this unified way of living and we pointed
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: outward toward the way we lead and influence the people
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: around us. We are going to talk about what it
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: means to become someone worth following, how the strongest leaders
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: lead from who they are rather than what they demand,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: and how everything we have built together becomes a light
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: that guides other people forward. Because once you have woven
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: yourself in a one steady way of living, the world
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: starts to notice and people start to follow. Until then
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: weave your wisdom, close the gap and keep moving forward.