Latest / Impact Ready / 182. Your Train Needs a Track

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182. Your Train Needs a Track · 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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  Hey, hey, welcome to the show this week.
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  Thanks so much for being here. I am really excited that we have
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  gotten into the month of February.
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  This is an awesome month to me. This is my birthday month for
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  all of you. Aquarius is out there.
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  Happy birthday to you as well. In this episode, I want to talk
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  about two of what I deem to be essential practices to be able
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  to have powerful impact in your life.
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  Not just impact, but more specifically to have quality
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  connections, to do great work, to make progress on your goals.
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  I mean, I guess all that stuff can be encompassed in impact,
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  but in the very first episode of this podcast, I described what
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  it meant to be impact ready. And essentially what it is, is
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  to have the skills and the energy so that you're ready to
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  have a powerful influence and a powerful effect at any time.
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  I also shared the two things that are necessary for you to be
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  able to make that happen, preparation and consistency.
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  And that's what I want to talk about today in this specific
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  episode. We are now beyond the first
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  month of 2026, January, when all of our goals and our intentions
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  are laid out on paper or whiteboards or even just in our
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  minds. And jokingly, I've heard a lot
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  of people talking about February being the month where goals and
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  intentions go to die. But that's not you, that's not
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  this audience, and that's certainly not me.
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  February is when we are going to double down team.
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  We are doubling down in February, Leanne and I've
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  already seen the gym settle down.
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  There's not as many people there in the mornings as there were in
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  the first couple weeks of January.
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  So I know this in real time. It's very easy for us to let go
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  of our well meaning intentions and This is why we're going to
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  talk about this today. So let's get into it.
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  Honestly, when I start talking about preparation and
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  consistency, it's really easy for people to tune out.
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  I can almost see people rolling their eyes, maybe even just in
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  their minds, and I completely understand why that is.
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  Those words are not sexy. And each of these words, they
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  have their own connotations. You know, preparation seems
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  pretty boring. It seems like a lot of work to
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  people. I get that consistency that just
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  seems rigid or constricting or confining.
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  I think also a lot of people confuse consistency with
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  intensity. They think that you have to go
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  hard all the time. And in reality, who wants to
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  live like that? Well, I'll tell you, a lot of
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  people live like that. And I also will tell you why
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  it's so freaking awesome. So think about it this way.
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  You've got the things that you want out on the horizon and you
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  have to get there in some way. You have to get to your goals
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  somehow. You've got to drive the train
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  towards the things that you want.
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  And if we're going to run with the metaphor of the train, I
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  think of a train track and I envision the two side rails as
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  being consistency and preparation.
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  So one is consistency and one is preparation.
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  You need both of them. They are the things that grease
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  the skids and allow the train to move in the right direction.
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  It is the structure for the train to follow.
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  And without a track, that train isn't moving anywhere.
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  If you think about your life, anytime you've ever tried to
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  pursue something, I would venture to guess that it didn't
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  go very well when you weren't prepared and you weren't
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  consistent with the things that you needed to do to get there.
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  Think about any big goal. If you're not showing up, if you
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  aren't preparing ahead of time, if you're not thinking about the
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  meeting that you need to speak at, if you're not doing the
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  reports, if you're not meeting the deadlines, if you're not
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  making sure you have enough energy to actually do the work
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  and do the speeches and show up each day, and you aren't doing
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  that consistently, guess what? You don't get to that big
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  promotion. You don't meet that deadline.
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  Recently, I was leading a meeting and we were talking
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  about this exact topic. I asked people what they did to
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  prepare for their big main goal that they've been working on.
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  I said, all right, think about the big goal, whatever it is
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  that you have, and think about what it is that you do to
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  prepare for that thing. And so they all shouted out
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  their answers and they wrote them down.
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  And then I asked them, OK, what percent of the time are you
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  following through on your preparation?
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  And they all paused for a second, and then they sheepishly
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  started to speak out their answers like, oh, 40% of the
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  time, maybe 30% of the time, 60% of the time.
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  And then we talked about consistency.
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  And I asked, OK, what does it mean to you?
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  What is it that you want to be consistent with?
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  And again, they wrote down their answers.
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  They shouted them out loud so everybody could hear.
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  And then I asked the same question.
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  What percentage of the time are you following through on that
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  consistency? Again, answers like 40 percent,
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  50% of the time. And you know, somebody did
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  actually say 80% of the time, but that was rare.
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  Most of the group was around 40 to 50%, and after that exercise,
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  the point was very clear to the group.
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  Everyone there had acknowledged that preparation and consistency
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  were the logical rails to the train track, and yet they all
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  admitted they weren't executing on either one of those things
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  very well. You have one rail of the track
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  that's 40% complete, 40% usable, and then you have another rail
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  that's 50 to 60% complete or usable.
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  That's a pretty bumpy ride to get to your goals.
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  And let's pass this off to you. Think about one thing that you
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  are working really hard to get to in your life.
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  Think about what you do to prepare each day or even the
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  night before to work towards that thing.
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  And then think about how consistent you are with that
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  work and be really honest with yourself.
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  Are you executing every day? Are you consistent every day?
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  Maybe it's every other day, maybe it's a couple times a
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  week. And now think about this.
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  What would it look like if you prepared every single night the
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  night before and you were consistent every single day for
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  the next week? Do you think that you would be
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  closer to your goal? Do you think that things would
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  be going better for you when it came to moving towards what you
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  want? And I asked my group that same
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  question the other night and everyone said immediately, yes,
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  absolutely yes, without a doubt. Here's the thing.
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  If we think of preparation as one rail and consistency as the
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  other rail of the track, it seems very clear that we would
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  need to be executing on these two things to have a smooth ride
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  and to have a fast ride to the goal.
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  And you see this in people. There are a lot of people who
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  are doing cool stuff in the world, a lot of people who are
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  really making it happen in their life.
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  And for many, it seems like a mystery, like how do I crack the
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  code to success like these people out there?
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  How do I do what that person is doing?
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  But so often it's not mysterious at all.
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  It's actually really simple and kind of boring.
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  It's that that person who is seemingly very successful is
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  just showing up more consistently and preparing
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  better to do the work necessary to get to where they want to go.
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  I know it's not sexy, it's not that exciting, it's kind of
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  boring. It's simply them stacking wins
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  everyday. Sometimes they're small wins so
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  that they can have a smoother, faster ride on the tracks.
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  And, you know, here's the truth. I would argue that preparation
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  and consistency are not rigid or constricting or confining at
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  all. I would actually argue that they
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  provide a lot of freedom, more efficiency, a lot more joy along
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  the path to getting to your goal.
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  You know, we all need tracks for our train to move on.
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  You can have this huge intention or desire out there.
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  You can have a huge goal, but at some point that train needs
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  something to move along. It's not pure heart or will that
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  can move the train. That's a piece of it.
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  That's definitely the fuel for the engine.
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  Going to really stick to this metaphor here.
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  But you have to have the structure.
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  You have to have something laid out for that train to move on.
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  So my challenge this week for all of you who are listening is
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  to think about your own track. Is it bumpy?
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  Are there gaps in it? Is it broken down because
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  there's a lack of consistency or a lack of preparation?
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  Or are you creating a fast, smooth ride for that train
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  because of the efforts that you're putting in with those two
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  things, with those two rails? Just asking those questions
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  alone will give you a really good idea of what's here right
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  now. It didn't take long for my group
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  members to answer that question for themselves.
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  They knew right away, and I think it will be the exact same
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  for you. So let's make February the month
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  where we double down on what we want, not the month where goals
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  go to die. Let's execute even better
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  because we're getting prepared each day and we're being
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  consistent more than ever before.
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  February is not the month where intentions and goals go to die.
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  No, no, no. This is the month where we turn
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  this whole thing into a bullet train and watch it speed down
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  the tracks. So that's all for today.
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  I hope this helps and I hope this gets you fired up.
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  I'm so glad you're here listening.
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  Let's get after it this week. And as always, team, thank you
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  for being here and 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 impact and
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  recognize that you are powerful. By elevating our energy and
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  awareness, we can create exponential change in this life.
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  If you enjoyed today's insights, share them with a friend and
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  subscribe to the show for more. I truly appreciate you.
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  Thanks again for being here.