818: THIS is influencing your behavior... whether you realize it or not!

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Hey, what is up?

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Welcome to this episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

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As always, I'm your host, brian LoFermento, and in today's Solo Sunday episode, I wanna talk about choosing our narratives, and I'm not just gonna give you that age-old advice of whatever you think.

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That's what you're gonna start noticing, that's what you're gonna start seeing.

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This episode is gonna take a really practical look at our narratives and, most importantly, our actions.

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I'm excited about this one.

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Let's dive in.

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All right, all things considered, I'm going to be honest with you.

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I am very excited about today's episode.

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I really am, because it's something that I've been thinking about a lot lately, but at the same time, I actually think this is gonna be a pretty quick and straightforward episode, because this is certainly not rocket science, and I actually hope that a really simple and, I think, slightly humorous story that I'm gonna share with you today is just a very simplistic simplistic I don't know why I put the emphasis on the wrong part of the word there, but it's a very simplistic example that, I think, is just going to illustrate the point that I really want to make here in today's episode, because it's powerful, all of this stuff, if we think about it and if we're intentional about it, then it can be a very powerful force in our lives.

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But, like I said, it's also very simple.

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So, first things first, today's episode really originates because this weekend I was hanging out with someone and she said to me she goes, brian, everywhere you go, you talk to everybody.

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And so it really got me thinking, because to me that's just normal.

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I mean, obviously I'm very extroverted, I love people, I love interacting with people and, it is for sure, true, no matter where I go, I always end up talking to people.

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And along those lines, though, I really started thinking yeah, why is it that?

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Like, where does that come from?

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Inside of me?

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Because not all extroverts do that.

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So I can't just chalk it up to the fact that I'm an extrovert, because if that was true, it'd be true for literally everybody but instead, when I really self-reflect, what I come up with is that I genuinely hold the belief I have the story, the narrative in my head that every time I leave the house is an opportunity to meet someone new.

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And that takes all shapes and sizes when I'm in a coffee shop, whether it's for business, whether it's for personal, for life, for hobbies, if I see someone with a tennis racket.

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A million percent, I'm going to talk to them, because I'm always on the lookout for someone new to play tennis with.

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So, at the end of the day, it's a firmly held belief in my life and in my head is that every time I'm out of the house, it's an opportunity to meet someone new.

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And so, as a result of that, what do my actions reflect?

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Well, if I leave this house, if, when I walk out the door, I think to myself, gosh, I might meet someone new today, Well then I am already operating from that belief system.

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So, chances are I'm going to talk to people, chances are I'm not going to have headphones in.

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Why?

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Because if I have headphones in, then I'm basically denying myself that belief to become reality.

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I am choosing to make it not true, because if you're wearing headphones spoiler alert all the millennials who are out there saying, oh, it's so hard to meet people these days Well, if you've got headphones in, you're already eliminating that possibility.

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As someone who talks to everybody, I don't talk to anyone who has headphones in If you don't have headphones.

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Anyone who has headphones in.

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If you don't have headphones in, though, you're fair game for sure, and so I just think that today, what I really want to talk to you about is whether our beliefs are true or not.

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Look, we've talked about it before.

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It's one of my favorite quotes of all time is that we don't see things as they are.

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We see things as we are.

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I very much believe that, but I'm not going to talk to you about that today.

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The older I get actually, I've been more cognizant of this fact lately that the older that I get the less concerned I am with being right or wrong.

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I honestly don't care these days if I'm right or if I'm wrong about anything.

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To be honest, I don't care if I'm right or wrong.

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It's just not something that bogs me down or makes me stop and think and question myself and all of those things.

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I think I've just accepted the fact that I don't know anything at all and I'm just willing to experiment, I'm willing to try things, I'm willing to hear both sides, I'm willing to hear anything to see what feels right, because, at the end of the day, I don't think any of you, any of us, know the reality about very many things at all, and so, with that in mind, I actually think the more important takeaway from this point I'm going to.

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I'm going to add on to my talking to strangers story in a second, because I think it's so perfectly illustrates the point that I want to make today.

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But really, what I'm getting at is that I don't care if our beliefs are right or wrong.

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I don't think we need to waste time trying to figure that out, because I don't think we'll ever figure it out.

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But what I do think we need to spend more time on is asking ourselves what actions do my beliefs lead me to take?

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Because my belief of every time I leave my house is an opportunity to meet someone new.

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Well, I know what actions that yields.

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For me, it means that I don't wear headphones.

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It means that I'm much more observant.

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I'm not very often on my phone when I'm in public.

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I am a chronic eavesdropper.

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I will jump into conversations or at least comment on things.

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I also have some social protocols.

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I'm not just going to be rude or jump in where people don't want others to be listening into them, but it really dictates some of my actions.

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So here's the story, and me talking to strangers is totally the spark of this story.

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It was just me being humorous.

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I didn't mean for it to be something real.

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But here we are.

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This is what happened today and it sparked my thoughts for this very episode.

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I knew immediately that I wanted to share this story with you, so I was on my bike ride here in Tampa, florida.

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I just got back.

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I spent a little bit of time in Northern Virginia for Easter weekend with my family.

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It was amazing, but being back in Tampa warm weather there's something so special about it.

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So I hopped on my bike today and I rode down.

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We've got this street here in Tampa called Bayshore Drive and it's the longest continuous pedestrian sidewalk in the United States of America Six miles of just no cars, none of that stuff.

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Just six miles one way, six miles on the way back, 12 mile loop on my bike.

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It is freaking awesome.

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And to kick things off, to get to Bayshore, I ride through downtown and I pass this bar.

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It's an outdoor bar, it's right along the river, it's right on the water and a lot of people are sitting kind of at the edge of it, overlooking the walkway, which is where I ride my bike as well.

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And this girl was sitting there good looking girl, and a few chairs down was this guy who.

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Both of them were alone.

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The girl was alone and the guy was alone.

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And so this guy was looking over at the girl.

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And this is as I'm rolling past, and sometimes I do things just to entertain myself.

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But as I'm rolling past the girl, I notice, okay, she's solo.

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Then I see the guy, he's solo, he's eyeing her.

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So I just pulled over on my bike and, just to be funny, I said to him hey, dude, I heard her say to her friend that she wants you to talk to her and he goes.

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For real, are you serious?

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I said, yeah, dude, you should talk to her.

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And he goes.

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Well, then you know what?

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I'm gonna slide right in while her friend's not there, because she was sitting solo.

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And so, as I biked away, I looked back and this dude approached her, and I obviously have no idea what the outcome of that encounter was.

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I have no idea.

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Imagine if it worked out.

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How cool would that be that I did this earlier.

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Today.

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I'm telling you this story about two complete strangers that I'll never know.

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You'll never know, and that would be so cool.

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But really, the reason why I'm telling you this story is because, as I wrote away in my head, I was like holy cow.

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I was obviously just joking.

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I honestly was literally just doing it to be playful and to be funny.

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I honestly didn't even believe that he would believe me.

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I thought for sure he knew that I was joking.

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I had a big smile on my face, I was half laughing and so as I wrote away, I was like what just happened?

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And so as I wrote away, I was like what just happened?

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How did my joke just influence this man's behavior?

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Because he was clearly eyeing her but he wasn't going to approach her.

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And it really got me thinking that, just consider his point of view when he's sitting there, probably the firmly held belief that he has that I think most people have in public is oh, that person doesn't want me to approach them.

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Or we can trick ourselves into believing that person probably is married or is in a relationship or wouldn't be interested in me.

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We have all of these firmly held beliefs or even loosely held beliefs, but they're beliefs that factor into our actions and so that dude, whatever beliefs he was sitting there with, I imparted a potential or at least a soft belief in him that she wanted him to approach.

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Now, whether that was right or wrong, I don't know because, quite frankly, I made it up.

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I honestly have no idea if she wanted him to approach her, but whether I was right or wrong is not the point.

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The point is that we don't know if I was right or wrong, but it still influenced his actions, and that, I think, is such a powerful message that that guy didn't need to know if I was right or wrong.

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All he needed to do was for him to believe that he had a green light, and that was enough for him to change his actions.

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And that was enough for him to change his actions.

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And so, riding away from that, that was like the first half mile of a 14 mile bike ride for me, and so I spent the next 13 and a half miles on my bike ride tonight it was a beautiful sunset bike ride I spent the next 13 and a half miles being like holy cow.

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Holy cow we act, we choose to do things.

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Our behavior is influenced by belief systems that it doesn't even matter if they're right or wrong.

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We act based on totally arbitrary and probably made up belief systems, and so when we wake up in the morning and we say to ourselves, my business will never work Well, whether you're right or wrong.

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I'm actually less concerned about that.

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I hope you can pick up that that's a strong theme from today's episode.

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Whether you're right or wrong about your business is not going to work.

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You're probably wrong.

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I hope that you're wrong.

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But whether you're right or wrong, that belief system in and of itself is dangerous because you are going to act accordingly you are going to.

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This is why self-sabotage is a thing I think all too often, if we meet people, if we begin projects, if we undertake a new endeavor any of these things if we go into it with the belief, or we foster the belief, that it's not going to work out, we will start behaving differently.

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It's a fact.

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We could apply it to relationships, to hobbies, to fitness, to business.

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We can apply it to literally anything.

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Whatever that belief is that you have.

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Today's message really is not about hey, if you believe it, it's going to come true, because obviously there's the law of attraction, and I love that Henry Ford quote.

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I've said it many times here on the podcast before whether you think you can or you can't, you're right.

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But I think what's even more important today is that recognition of those belief systems are actually driving and influencing our actions and our behaviors, whether we realize it or not.

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I think it was such a beautiful and simple illustration that that guy went from sitting there ogling over this girl at a bar, wishing that he could talk to her, to just some external influence me passing by on a bike.

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I really hope one day one of them listens to this episode preferably him, because he'll have this context.

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But it didn't matter that what I said was totally arbitrary, I was saying it just as a joke.

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What mattered was that it shifted his internal belief systems, which then produced or took shape in real life through his actions, and so I think it's really important for us.

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This is something that you all know.

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I do Sunday coffee dates with myself, and this is my self-exploration time, which is why, solo Sunday episodes I always have introspective thoughts to share with you.

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It's because, on a weekly basis, I sit down with me and I think about these things, and so I think it's really important for all of us to look inwards, not just today but every single week, and ask ourselves what are my beliefs?

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What do I believe right now about business?

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What do I believe right now about me?

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What do I believe right now about my partner or my potential partner, or about me meeting a partner, or about my health and fitness, my discipline, my motivation, my time, my family, my schedule, my plans, my finances.

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What are your beliefs about all of those things?

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Because if you're sitting there and your life is your life, that's a very simple fact, but it's truth.

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Your life is your life.

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But the reason why I say it so simply is because you already know how you act in all of those areas, and so if your thoughts and your beliefs are influencing your actions, well, in order to change and reshape your actions, then, gosh, we better sit down and get honest with ourselves about our beliefs.

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And that's probably why, if we have a spark of motivation, whether we listen to an episode like this one or a YouTube video or an inspirational audio, like I've been doing that lately on Spotify lately I love doing that They've got these really cool audio clips with motivational speeches over like really heart-pumping music.

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Those get me going every time, and so it's easy to get excited for a moment or for an hour or for a day or for a week, but ultimately, we're always gonna revert back to whatever our thoughts and our beliefs are, as they influence and dictate our actions and our behaviors.

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So I actually think if we want to change any of the results in our lives about all those areas I just listed health, fitness, wealth, relationships, business time, anything then we got to start sitting down and thinking about those beliefs.

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So for me, seeing that guy go from just sitting there to taking action today, gosh, it put something, it put a fire under me and it made me realize I need to re-examine all my beliefs about everything, because him just believing it totally arbitrarily, he didn't even need evidence for it.

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He just needed the very simple belief, as loosely held as it was, and that gave him the green light, that gave him the excuse to take the action that he wanted to take.

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Then we all need that.

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We all need to sit down and ask ourselves these big questions.

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That's it for me in today's episode.

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I hope this one resonates.

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Gosh, I'm all sorts of fired up after that bike ride.

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It was a beautiful bike ride but, granted, I'm super biased when I'm in warm weather, everything seems good to me, so I'm fired up.

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Hopefully this episode hits the way that I hope it did.

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Hopefully it hits you where you needed it to to kickstart this week.

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We are at the beginning of Q2.

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So much goodness to come over the coming three months and, of course, over the remainder of this year and beyond.

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So pound that subscribe button, because we're coming at you as always, five days a week every Monday, wednesday, friday, saturday and Sunday here on the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

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Hey, it's Brian here, and thanks for tuning in to yet another episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

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If you haven't checked us out online, there's so much good stuff there.

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Check out the show's website and all the show notes that we talked about in today's episode at the entrepreneur showcom.

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It's for real me and I'm excited because I'll see you, as always every Monday, wednesday, friday, saturday and