898: The world is chaotic right now... here's what we MUST do!

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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 I'll tell you what.

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It's a crazy world out there, and that's why, for this Solo Sunday episode, I wanna take a second to talk about what we must do at this pivotal time in history.

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I'm excited about this one.

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Let's dive in, all right.

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So, if we look backwards a little bit, let's go all the way back to 2020, which is obviously the year that COVID-19 pandemic went global and obviously changed our world then and forever, and I will never, ever forget that.

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Obviously, 2020 was also an election year.

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So here in the United States, it was a very big presidential election.

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It was Donald Trump, who was president at the time, against Joe Biden, who, for the past four years, at time of recording this, has been our president.

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And so, amidst all of that, the world was just freaking out in so many different ways Obviously the pandemic, the financial climate, the political climate things were, quite frankly, just shut down.

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I mean, travel changed, family relationships, everything changed in 2020.

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And our most downloaded episode that year, in 2020, I don't usually talk about our metrics very publicly, but in 2020, we had one episode that, resoundingly, was the most downloaded, most listened to episode, and that was episode 377, which was titled the Debate in Politics for Us as Entrepreneurs, and in that episode I talked about the fact that everybody wants to get freaked out about politics.

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Everybody wants to focus on that.

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When you turn the TV on, it doesn't matter what news channel you turn it on to, everybody wants to talk about politics.

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And at that same time, obviously there was political protests.

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There was just protests in the streets across the United States.

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There were the Black Lives Matter movement.

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There was so much going on.

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Honestly, there was so much.

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And when I fast forward to today, four years later coincidence or not, whatever you want to believe it's another election year here in the United States and obviously there have been so many different elections all around the world.

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As someone who I enjoy politics, I enjoy political theory, I love talking about the implications of different legislative things for us as people, especially us as entrepreneurs and small business owners.

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I'm firmly of the belief that small business moves societies forward and we need to have a clear pathway for everybody to succeed.

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I think that's such an important thing for every single society.

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A lot of people talk about the rich, the poor.

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Honestly, what I want to talk about is class mobility.

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I think that it's important for everyone who wants to and who can and who wants to work and do things.

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I believe very firmly that they should and must have the opportunity to accomplish anything that they want, and there's a lot that goes behind that.

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But, at the end of the day, it really leads me to today's episode, because I know that everybody wants to talk politics right now.

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I know that the world is a little bit chaotic right now with regards to the political scene, but also with regards to economic times.

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It's uncertainty in the economy right now.

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Obviously, the housing market is going through.

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Whatever it's going through right now.

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There's a lot going on on a macro level.

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There's a lot going on on micro levels.

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There's also different countries at war across the globe.

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Obviously, we've got the political discourse going on around Israel and the fight that's going on within the Gaza Strip.

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There's Russia, ukraine, there's a lot going on in China.

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There's stuff going on everywhere.

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That's really what I'm getting at in today's episode, but, most importantly, because I'm not someone who just believes in consuming.

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I'm someone who believes in focusing and actually doing something that moves the needle forward, and that's why, in today's episode, really clearly, I want to talk about what we must do in this pivotal time, what we absolutely must do in this pivotal time, and this isn't stuff you're going to see on Twitter, it's not stuff you're going to see in the news when you turn your favorite news station on or your not so favorite news station, whatever it may be.

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The one thing they're not going to tell you, I personally believe, is the one thing that we all must do, and that is we must take care of ourselves.

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Holy cow.

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So simply, I believe we must take care of ourselves.

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I mean this for us as entrepreneurs, but, of course, in most solo Sunday episodes I extrapolate this stuff way out beyond just business and entrepreneurship.

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I mean this stuff for life.

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Quite simply, nobody else is going to save us, nobody else is going to take care of us.

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We must take care of ourselves, and that's what I believe makes being an entrepreneur the most empowering thing that any and all of us can do.

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We are the creators of our own destiny.

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We are the ones who can directly benefit other people.

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I look at what some of the greatest entrepreneurs, not only through history but today, are doing.

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They are truly the change that they wish to see in the world, whether we talk about the inventions of Steve Jobs, who obviously has passed away.

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But Steve Jobs left a legacy that will forever be felt.

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I'm recording this on a Mac.

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I have an iPhone right next to me, I'm wearing an Apple watch.

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In so many ways, this man's vision that he brought to the world made the world a better place.

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I think very frequently about how often we hear that you know, an Apple watch detected a heart condition in somebody or the iPhone.

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I just saw a couple of weeks ago someone was out hiking and they were in an area with no service.

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But the iPhone the new iPhones have satellite reception to call 911 services and that's exactly what happened and they got rescued where they were.

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So there's so much power in being an entrepreneur, but with that power also comes we talked last week about accountability.

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It comes in an extreme degree of accountability and I think in today's times, when it's so easy for everybody else to get wrapped up in politics and to get wrapped up in current events and gosh just everything I mean when I log on to Facebook.

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I really only go on to Facebook because I'm a member of certain groups that I use, either groups that I tap into locally here for social reasons, or groups that I tap into for entrepreneurial reasons.

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Tap into for entrepreneurial reasons.

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You heard in our Action Saturday episode not this week but last week where we talked about eavesdropping and getting in front of the conversations, tapping into the conversations that your ideal customers and clients are having.

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I think it's really important.

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But when I do go onto Facebook, it seems like everybody else is fighting everybody else's battles.

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It's all these causes that we can all put in our profile pictures and everyone's doing that and everyone's saying, hey, let's raise money for this country or let's raise money for these people, but so few people are fighting for their own cause.

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And I think it's really important as a reminder and a reflection for all of us as entrepreneurs, but of course also as people, to just ask ourselves am I taking care of me?

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Am I looking out for me?

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And in today's Solo Sunday episode, when we talk about this context, I really want to point out that we need to take care of ourselves in all the ways.

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If you're struggling with your business or whatever it is that you're struggling with in life, we all have our struggles.

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That is a uniquely human experience.

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We all have our struggles.

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Every single human being has our own struggles.

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They're different struggles, but we all have struggles.

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It's something that does unite us, and I think it's really important to put into context that all of our struggles get better.

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Better when we look out for us, when we take care of us.

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We so often hear that quote of you can't pour from an empty cup, and I know it's a bit of a cliche at how frequently we say that societally, but it truly is important.

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And I think it's important for us to call out here, amidst the global chaos, amidst the local, the regional whatever it may be chaos, and amidst the news cycles which have just gone berserk over the past 30 days in particular, I think it's really important for us to remind ourselves hey, there's a lot going on in the world, but I got to take care of me, and when I take care of me, a lot of other things improve as well.

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When I take care of me the people who I want to serve they also end up being better taken care of.

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When I take care of me, my family also ends up better taken care of.

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Because I'm good, people don't have to worry about me, because I'm good, because I'm taking care of me, I'm eating well, I'm exercising, I'm filling my mind with good things.

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I'm doing good work.

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I'm living up to my standards, my ideals, my values.

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Doing good work I'm living up to my standards, my ideals, my values.

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I'm being productive in the ways that I care about and in the ways that I want to positively impact the world.

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I'm being a voice of good.

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I'm being someone who positively impacts people that I'm able to help and that I'm able to serve.

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Those things are far more important for us as entrepreneurs to move us forward collectively.

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But especially today's episode is actually truly about the individual.

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A few weeks ago I did a Solo Sunday episode that I'm so grateful it resonated with so many of you, in fact a lot of our guests that came on after that Solo Sunday episode.

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They also called it out to me, which it's so flattering knowing that our amazing guests tune into our Solo Sunday episodes.

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But a lot of people resonated with my episode about a rising tide lifts all boats and talking about the collective and how we can all win.

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It is an abundance mindset.

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It is a game where it's not a zero-sum game.

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There don't have to be winners and losers in this game of life and in this game of business and entrepreneurship.

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A rising tide truly can lift all boats, but today we're zooming way in to the most important player in this game of life and in this game of entrepreneurship, and that most important player truly is you, and I don't feel like we talk about this enough societally.

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Sure, we can debate and we can talk politics and we can talk about how the future of our nation for those of us in the United States, but truly I mean this is a global thing, a lot of countries, it's not unique to the United States that we're having elections, that we're going through really important periods of time in history, right now in our lifetimes, and so I don't want to downplay the fact that all of these things are real, because they are real, but they're not as actionable for us, and I think that in most cases, these are merely distractions for us and distractions to us, and I feel like, because the media loves talking about all of these things that we all get wrapped into, we lose that sense of self, we lose that sense of self-responsibility and empowerment, when in fact, the most empowering thing that we can do and actually probably the greatest good that we can do on this planet is to take care of ourselves.

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I genuinely mean it when I say to you that I think that if you take care of yourself, most things in your life they'll start taking care of themselves.

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I think that if you are good, most things around you also become good.

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I think that if you look after your health, your finances, your habits, your mental health I think that's very important.

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That's why I'm so grateful that you invest in you.

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You tune into this Solo Sunday episode, and I'm not going to argue that this is the only podcast that you listen to.

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In fact, I would argue that if you are listening to these Solo Sunday episodes, you're probably pretty freaking invested in your own personal growth and your own development, your own learning and your own fine tuning, and I'm so appreciative of you for that, because it's the greatest gift that you can give yourself is to feed yourself mentally and physically good, healthy things, is to take care of you, is to focus on you so that you can more adequately and better focus on helping others.

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Because look, I guess zooming out, because a lot of people are I can already imagine what the debate to this episode may be, and a lot of people will say, brian, we have a responsibility to stand up as citizens.

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We have responsibility in so many ways.

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We do say, brian, we have a responsibility to stand up as citizens.

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We have responsibility in so many ways we do absolutely trust me as someone who enjoys politics, like I said.

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I mean I come from an immigrant family.

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My family chose the United States of America.

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This country means so much to me for so many reasons and it's it's ingrained in my family's history and with that in mind, I would love to see the United States be and continue to be.

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It doesn't matter how you feel about it.

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We all have opinions.

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I would love to see the United States continue to be the greatest country in the world and a positive force for change across the planet, not in a lot of ways that we see the media talking about it, but at the end of the day, what is the United States?

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What is any country?

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Well, what it really is is a collection of individuals and, to me, the best a country can be, the best a society can be, the best any group can be, is a society or a group of people who take care of themselves first as individuals, and if we all start doing that, everything becomes better.

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And for us as entrepreneurs, I think it's so important to remind ourselves of that, because I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs over the past 16 years that I've been doing this and, trust me, I've seen in 16 years you see a lot of entrepreneurs come and you see a lot of entrepreneurs go, and one of the common threads that I've seen in the entrepreneurs that have both come and gone in my 16 years of being in this game is that they fight for others' causes more than they fight for their own, and it can not only sidetrack you, but I think that it can distort your perception of where your focus should be and where you can do the most good in the world.

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And as someone who's very fortunate to be surrounded by a lot of incredible people, measured by all sorts of metrics not talking about money or success here, but some incredible people, some really happy people, some really family-oriented people who have beautiful, healthy, happy families that I'm so grateful to see those examples of, to some really fit people, a lot of really healthy people that inspire me, what I see in all of them is that they know how to take care of themselves and they don't get bogged down by all of these things.

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And I'm not saying that we shouldn't use our voices to stand up for what we believe in.

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We all get to cast a ballot whenever the election is, and we all get to have our opportunity to tell our friends and family how we feel.

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But I think, above those things, we need to make sure we are good individually inside, and I see a lot of that missing during this time of the year, during this four-year election cycle.

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I think that there's a lot of things that get in the way and serve as a distraction, but to me, the healthiest that we can be is healthy minds, healthy bodies, healthy bank accounts healthy, whatever it may be.

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Healthy social accounts.

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Healthy family accounts healthy, whatever, whatever is important to you.

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Let that thing be healthy, and it's not going to be healthy unless you take care of it.

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And so so One thing I like about entrepreneurs is we don't often look for permission from others.

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Go us.

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I love that fact about all of us entrepreneurs is that we just go forth and we do the things that we know are super important and we don't wait for someone else to give us that permission.

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But in today's episode, I just want to remind you that you've got that permission Take care of you.

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I'll tell you what.

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If there's one thing I've learned over the past 35 years of my life you know I'm still young in the grand scheme of the world, but there's so much that you experience and that you learn through 16 years of entrepreneurship, and the one thing that I've seen is that anything can change in six months or a year.

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Anything can change, and so while the rest of the world goes crazy this is really, if we're summing up today's episode in one little soundbite this is it right here that while the rest of the world is going to go crazy for the next six months?

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We know that I'm just telling you.

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We know that the rest of the world is going to go crazy in so many different ways in the next six months.

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But if you and I just just the two of us, just me and you, you, this one person who's listening right now, all right, I wish I could call you out by name.

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I always wish, here on podcast episodes, I could talk directly to you, the listeners, but this is me doing that If you and I just focus on taking care of us for the next six months.

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Everything can change.

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We can change our health, we can change our wealth.

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We can change our relationships.

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Everything can change.

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We can change our health, we can change our wealth.

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We can change our relationships.

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There's so much that we can take control of in just six months of focusing on us, in six months of taking care of us, and I promise you that the rest of the world will get sucked into all of the things that are going to come over the second half of 2024 as we roll into 2025.

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There's a lot of stuff that's going to happen, but today's episode is all about saying you know what?

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None of that stuff matters.

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None of that stuff changes what happens in my world.

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None of that stuff directly touches me and my people that I care about.

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Whether you measure that as your friends, your family, the clients that you're looking to serve, whoever that group of people is, the best way for you to help them is to take care of you now, today, tomorrow and every single day for the next six months and beyond.

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And everything can change, I promise you as someone who's experienced it in my own life, for both good and worse.

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That's the beauty of it is that our lives can change in huge ways, for both the good and the bad, and so we get to make that choice today, with political unrest, with global unrest, with economic unrest, let's take care of ourselves.

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We can do it together.

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It's the beautiful thing about a rising tide lifting all boats, but at the end of the day, we all need to be responsible for taking care of ourselves.

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Don't beat your body up, don't beat your business up, don't beat your bank account up, don't beat up the relationships that are important to you.

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Let's start taking care of ourselves, let's start optimizing what's in front of us and let's let the rest of the world worry about whatever the heck the news is going to point our heads to over the next six months and beyond.

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But for me, and hopefully for you and for everybody within the entrepreneur to entrepreneur community, I'm really committed to continuing to show up in a place of service for each and every one of us entrepreneurs, aligned with some incredible guests.

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Honestly, I think our guests are bright, shining lights on this planet earth because they are so generous with their time.

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They're so incredibly generous with their knowledge.

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Honestly, I'm so amazed.

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This week you're going to hear from four.

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Again.

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We've got a duo episode coming at you this week.

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You're going to hear from four incredible entrepreneurs that are once again showing that anything is possible when you go at this and when you're committed and disciplined and you keep doing the good work and when you invest in your personal development and growth and education.

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So I'm so excited for you to hear from all four of our amazing entrepreneurs this week.

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So make sure you pound that subscribe button and I'll see you, as always 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 thewantrepreneurshowcom.

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And I just wanna give a shout out to our amazing guests.

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There's a reason why we are ad-free and have produced so many incredible episodes five days a week for you and and have produced so many incredible episodes five days a week for you, and it's because our guests step up to the plate.

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These are not sponsored episodes.

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These are not infomercials.

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Our guests help us cover the costs of our productions.

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They so deeply believe in the power of getting their message out in front of you, awesome entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, that they contribute to help us make these productions possible.

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So thank you to not only today's guests, but all of our guests in general, and I just want to invite you check out our website because you can send us a voicemail there.

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We also have live chat.

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If you want to interact directly with me, go to thewantrepreneurshowcom.

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Initiate a live chat.

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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 Sunday here on the entrepreneur to entrepreneur podcast.