948: NO ONE bigger than you will do THIS! (an important reminder for all of us...)

Transcript

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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, we are going to talk about, for sure, the biggest difference between myself as an entrepreneur versus me 10 years ago as an entrepreneur, and this advice and wisdom comes from, for sure, my single favorite book of all time.

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I'm going to reveal what that book is, why I reread it every single year and, yes, of course, I'm going to share with you those nuggets of knowledge that I've picked up that, in hindsight, make up the biggest difference between myself now and 10 years ago.

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I'm excited about this one.

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Let's dive in one.

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Let's dive in Some huge bonus points to those of you who are very long-term listeners who, as soon as I teased in the intro to today's episode that I'm going to talk about my favorite book ever, a lot of you who have been here since the very beginning probably immediately knew exactly which book I was referring to, because I've been talking about this book since probably the first 50 episodes of this show.

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And here we are, almost a thousand episodes in and I'm still talking about it.

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And the reason why is because I do reread this book every single year and don't worry, I'm going to totally spill all the beans here in today's episode.

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But first I want to tell you why I reread this book every single year, because I remember I used to.

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When I heard people say, oh yeah, I've read that book 50 times, I used to always think to myself why it's the same book, like, do you just have a really bad memory and you can't remember what's in there?

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But the truth is, every single time I read this book, two things happen.

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One I pick up something new, and that what's awesome is that different things or the same things resonate differently with us at different stages in our life, based on different things, that we're thinking different things, we're experiencing different things we've experienced there's so many different ways that the same content can hit you in the right moment, and that's why usually at the end of these solo Sunday episodes, I feel like I've made it a bit of a habit recently where I say I hope this episode hit you where you needed it to today, because I just openly acknowledge as a content creator that not all the content I create or the things I say are going to hit you where you need it in any given moment, because we're all in different places, we're all in different head spaces, we're all in different parts of our entrepreneurial journey, with our own thoughts, our own limitations, our own scenarios that we're going through.

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So that's the first thing that happens every time I reread this book is I pick up something new that hits me differently in that moment.

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And the second thing that happens to me every single time I reread it is I remember those snippets that really resonated with me in years past and it just gives me cause for reflection, where I sit back and I go, whoa, I remember when this was the exact advice or perspective or mindset shift that I needed to get through the things that I was going through a year ago, three years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, and so that's why today's episode it's the time of year I'm rereading it right now.

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Total spoiler alert.

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I'm actively reading this book right now, and it's because it is the single book.

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If there was only one book that I was ever allowed to read ever again, time and time again it would be this book.

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It is for sure the most impactful book of my life.

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It's the only book that I read every single year, and I always take new things away from it.

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And the book is called the Magic of Thinking Big.

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It's by David J Schwartz.

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It's incredible, the Magic of Thinking Big.

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Definitely check it out.

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I mean, I have a physical copy.

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It's an absolute disaster at this point.

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It has gone through many moves with me across the country.

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Many times it's I don't know where it got wet, but it definitely got wet somewhere along the way.

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So, yeah, that's the name of the book.

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I'm rereading it right now and I came across this advice in this chapter that made me realize it's the biggest difference in myself now versus 10 years ago, and I wanted to do an episode about it today because it is something that we, as entrepreneurs, we continue to face.

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We always face the negators, the negative forces that are around us, because, quite frankly, there's a million negative forces around us.

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The news is a negative force.

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Just turn the TV on and you're going to be convinced that the world is ending, quite literally.

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There are people who are saying that on the news every single day, week, month, year is that the world is going to end.

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So, spoiler alert the world has not ended.

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They've been saying that since the beginning of the 1900s, but we're still here and I hope that we are here for a heck of a long time from here, but there are so many different negative forces.

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There's the person who just even I want to bring this as an example because it's a small one, but I remember 10 years ago oh, this one used to get to me and I'm curious if you, as a fellow entrepreneur, or you as a entrepreneur, ifur, if this also bothers you, because I just I can so clearly remember this is that when people would say, oh, are you still doing that soccer blog, it just felt like they were diminishing it.

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The words that they were choosing was these small words like oh, are you still doing that soccer blog of yours?

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And that drove me crazy and in so many ways, I actually haven't talked about this publicly in a long time, actually, if ever in this show's history, but if we rewind, obviously recently we celebrated this show's eighth birthday eight years of doing this show and almost 1000 episodes and I don't know if I've ever explicitly called this out, but the night that this podcast started, someone who I was with for a long time it was a four-year relationship and I remember I was excitedly sharing all of my big ideas with her and I said, oh my gosh, I wanna do this and I wanna do this and I just feel like having a podcast at the center of it would be really cool.

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And she said to me that night she said why?

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Why would anyone listen to you?

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Like, what makes you think that that's a good idea?

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You have all these crazy ideas.

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Why would anyone listen to you?

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And so that was not only the end of that relationship, but it was the very beginning of this podcast episode, although I will say that it factored in and I'm really proud of myself for rising through it.

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And that's why I'm really excited to share with you the excerpt from the magic of thinking big today that I've pulled out, because we all face that, whether it's someone we're dating, whether it's even worse if it's a spouse, if it's a family member, if it's a parent, if it's a aunt or an uncle, if it's a dear friend of yours, even if it's a stranger, we all face detractors.

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Trust me Ask.

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We all face detractors.

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Trust me ask anyone who works behind the scenes at the entrepreneur to entrepreneur podcast.

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We get our fair share of emails of people especially, you know, entrepreneurs are an egotistical bunch.

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We all have egos, and that motivates us in good ways as well, as it also has some shadow sides to it, and so we get a fair amount of emails where people say, oh, who makes you think that this person's good enough to speak about sales or mindset?

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Or I could have talked about that even more.

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We get our fair share of detractors.

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We all do in business, and that's really setting the tone for today's episode is.

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I just want to openly acknowledge that that's a thing, and so now I want to share with you just that one excerpt that 10 years ago, it gave me the strength to go through what I went through that I just shared with you eight years ago, where someone who was near and dear to me, the most important person to me aside from family back then, someone that I was with for four years, and it gave me the strength and the perspective I want to say that it gave me the perspective to power through that sort of detraction.

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And so let me just let me read the excerpt for you.

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This excerpt is from the Magic of Thinking Big by Dr David J Schwartz, and here is the excerpt beginning this group maybe two or three percent of the world doesn't let pessimism dictate, doesn't believe in surrendering to suppressive forces, doesn't believe in crawling.

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Instead, these people live and breathe success.

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This group is the happiest because it accomplishes the most.

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These people become top salesmen, top executives, top leaders in their respective fields.

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These people find life stimulating, rewarding, worthwhile.

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These people look forward to each new day, each new encounter with other people as adventures to be lived fully.

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Let's be honest All of us would like to be in the third group, the one that finds greater success each year, the one that does things and gets results.

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To get and stay in this group, however, we must fight off the suppressive influences of our environment To understand how persons in the first and second groups will unwittingly try to hold you back.

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Study this example.

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Suppose you tell several of your average friends with the greatest sincerity, someday I'm going to be vice president of this company.

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What will happen?

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Your friends will probably think you're joking.

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And if they should believe you mean it, chances are they will say you, poor guy, you sure have a lot to learn Behind your back.

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They may even question whether you have all your marbles Now.

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Assume you repeat the same statement with equal sincerity to the president of your company.

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How will they react.

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One thing is certain they will not laugh.

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They will look at you intently and ask themselves does this person really mean this?

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But they will not, we repeat, laugh, because big people do not laugh at big ideas.

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Or suppose you tell some average people you plan to own an expensive home and they may laugh at you because they think it's impossible.

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But tell your plan to a person already living in an expensive home and they won't be surprised.

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They know it isn't impossible because they've already done it.

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Remember people who tell you it cannot be done almost always are unsuccessful people are strictly average or mediocre at best in terms of accomplishment.

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The opinions of these people can be poison.

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Develop a defense against people who want to convince you that you can't do it.

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Accept negative advice only as a challenge to prove that you can do it.

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That's the end of the excerpt that I wanted to share with you from the Magic of Thinking Big by David J Schwartz.

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Now, I love that because whenever I experience those detractors in my life, whether it's in response to an email that I get, or whether it's people who laugh at an idea that I share with them, I'm always thinking big.

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In fact, rereading this book is challenging me to think even bigger all over again, and I'm for sure going to be talking about that throughout Q4 here on the show and way beyond into 2025.

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In fact, it's going to be an exercise later this month here in October, our entire team is flying up to Boston and we're doing our in-person quarterly retreat, which is where we get work done.

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We work on big projects together, but we also think.

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We think big.

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We think differently, and this is going to be one of our exercises is to challenge ourselves individually and as a team to think big, and a large part of that is the recognition that small people nobody who's done more than you will ever laugh at your big ideas Small people those are going to be the ones that laugh at your ideas because they are the ones that can't do it.

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And so today I really wanted to make this episode because, for me, I'm very fortunate in the fact that it's something that's changed for me over the past 10 years.

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Now, obviously, I have 10 years of entrepreneurial experience, I have 10 years of wins in various capacities, I have 10 years of losses that have taught me that losses are not final, and I also have 10 years of maturity and life and all of those things that come with it.

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However, what I really realize is that it is that perspective, it is that vantage point.

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When I do get a piece of hate mail which I promise you like I can't stress to you enough while I'm here on the air, we do get it as literally just email.

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Anyone on my team Don't even ask me email anyone on my team about some of the emails that we get as a show Laura, for example, who you're going to be hearing from on the podcast later this month.

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She manages our inbox.

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If you go to our website and you fill out that contact form, that's going to Laura.

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She sees a lot of messages from people who are listeners, which we're super grateful for all of you but we also hear it from other entrepreneurs, other podcasters, just other people who think that they have a voice that needs to be used for negativity, and we see all of those things and I'm so grateful for this reminder, this perspective that I gained from this book all those years ago, because every time I see those detractors, every time I see these negative messages, not only is it a reminder to me of hey, keep pushing, do bigger things, let this be a challenge to yourself, but it also puts it into perspective that this person isn't doing anything big.

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There's no chance, because big people don't reply that way.

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Big people don't serve as detractors for others.

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And so for all of us as entrepreneurs, and into 100% of you wantrepreneurs excuse me this is a real threat.

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It's a real threat in all of your businesses, all of our businesses.

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It's a big threat in all of our growth journeys.

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It's a big threat to the way that we think, the way that we see the world, the way that we find opportunities.

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I'm telling you, it can be a blindfold if you let these detractors shape the way that you see the world.

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And so it's so important for us to have this reminder.

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If someone responds to your proposal in a really negative way, let's say, you send a proposal out for $10,000 or $20,000 or $2,000, the dollar amount doesn't matter but I know that all of us are going to send proposals out in our lives.

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And let's say you send one out and the person goes that's absolutely ridiculous.

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What makes you think that you could charge that much?

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This is an absurd proposal.

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I was interested until I found out that you charge $3,000, $10,000, $30,000, $100,000.

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And they think it's absolutely preposterous and they belittle you for your way of thinking and the bigness of your thinking.

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Well, that's a reminder to you that that person doesn't operate at that level, because if you send a proposal for $30,000 to someone who's used to $150,000 projects, why would they flinch, why would they belittle a $30,000 proposal?

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It's just exposing the either expansiveness or limited nature of the other person's thinking for themselves and that's why it's so important for us to have this perspective and that's why it's so important for all of us to learn and embrace this lesson is because we are going to experience people who think smaller than us along this journey.

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It's guaranteed.

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It's not only guaranteed in business, it's guaranteed in life.

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You have to remember.

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Probably 98 to 99% of the world think big.

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It's something that when I meet with fellow entrepreneurs and I always hear them saying gosh, I need to find an extra thousand dollars a month and I'm going through all my expenses and I'm trying to cut this and I'm trying to cut that.

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I just reflect on all the outrageously successful entrepreneurs that I know that say gosh, I need to find an extra $1,000 a month.

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How do I start selling things at a much higher price?

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How do I start bringing a heck of a lot more revenue through the door?

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It's just entirely different ways of thinking.

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It all comes back to do you think small or do you think big?

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Because that's going to dictate the things you see, it's going to dictate the questions you ask and it for sure is going to dictate the answers that you find.

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So, yeah, I mean, obviously we talked about that excerpt today, but really you can tell, I'm just I'm eager to talk about thinking big and that's why I'm super pumped to be right in the thick of it, rereading the magic of thinking big for the first time here in 2024,.

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I'm going to reread it again in 2025 and it's probably not the last time, even this year, that you're going to hear me talk about it.

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So I hope this hits you where you are.

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I hope that it's a timely reminder for you.

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I hope it's a perspective that sits with you and stays with you and that you embrace, and that it sticks with you, not just stays with you.

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I genuinely hope it sticks because, whether we want to admit it or not, there's people out there, there's things out there, there's environments, there's situations that are going to try to detract our positivity, detract our hope and optimism and dreams and visions, and this is how we rise above it.

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It's just this reminder because, truth be told, it has nothing to do with us.

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

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I'm so excited.

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I know I say this every single week, but every week when I look at the list of guests that we've got coming on the show, it just reminds me of all the incredible conversations that I'm so fortunate that I get to have and that I'm really grateful that we get to air here on the show for your benefit, for you to grow your business, your mindset, your skills, the way that you serve others, the way that you change your life with your own business.

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So this week you're going to hear from three awesome guests.

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Tomorrow we're kicking things off in episode 949 with Jenny Wu.

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Jenny has got an international story, gosh.

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She did this episode and this interview in not her native language and she absolutely powered through it while delivering immense value.

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And I'll tell you what.

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Jenny is definitely younger than me because the perspectives that she gives with regards to marketing and how to stand out and what she calls her 3X matrix so that you can actually grow your business fast it's such a fresh perspective on marketing and yes, memes.

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You're going to hear all of that in tomorrow's episode 949 with Jenny Wu.

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Episode 950 on Wednesday this is one of my favorite people, one of my favorite entrepreneurs on the planet, christine Watson.

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It was truly a joy and I mean that in every single sense of the word.

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It was an absolute joy to sit down with Christine Watson for Wednesday's episode 950, because, yes, we do talk about joy, but we also talk about joy but we also talk about unrelenting resilience.

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There's so much in there Nature's powers in unlocking personal growth.

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I was all sorts of fired up after this conversation and I personally took a lot of action after it, and I know that you will.

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So you definitely don't want to miss Wednesday's episode 950 with Christine Watson and then 951 with Garrett Foster Gosh.

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Garrett is brilliant in so many different ways when he talks about business, growth and scale and burnout and all the different factors that we face, both good and bad.

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I don't even really want to say that way, but just the harsh realities of what we face, both good and bad I don't even really want to say that way, but just the harsh realities of what we face.

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Garrett has such a simplistic and powerful way of making sense of it all, to actually be able to focus on a blueprint for success.

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So he's extraordinarily wise.

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He is extraordinarily successful.

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You are all in for a treat in Friday's episode, which is 951, with Garrett Foster.

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So all of that's just a bit of a tease.

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Pound that subscribe button.

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We'll see you, as always every Monday, wednesday, friday, saturday and Sunday here on the entrepreneur to entrepreneur podcast.

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Hey, it's Brian here, and thanks for tuning in to yet another episode of the entrepreneur 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 wantrepreneurshowcom.

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

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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 Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

948: NO ONE bigger than you will do THIS! (an important reminder for all of us...)

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