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A new season of Bridgerton is here.
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And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
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I m your host, Gabby Collins.
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And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
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Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
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Then fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
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Guess what, Will?
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What s that, Mango?
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I ve been trying to write a promo for our podcast, Part-Time Genius, but even though we ve done over 250 episodes, we don t really talk about murders or cults.
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I mean, we did just cover the Illuminati of cheese, so I feel like that makes us pretty edgy.
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We also solve mysteries like how Chinese is your Chinese food and how do dollar stores make money?
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And then, of course, can you game a dog show?
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So what you re saying is everyone should be listening.
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Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Hey everyone, this is Molly and Matt and we re the hosts of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts.
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It s a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting.
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Like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone and so much more.
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Let s learn about all of it and then some.
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Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on America s number one podcast network, iHeart.
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Open your free iHeart app and search Grown Up Stuff.
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Imagine you have a glass of water, and someone says they re thirsty, and you give them the whole glass, and then you re trying to give them more from that glass, but there s no more left.
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You end up feeling guilty, and the other person is looking at you like, what are you trying to do, right?
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It doesn t make sense, but we do it emotionally.
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Emotionally, we try to over-give, over-share, over-provide, over-promise, and naturally, we end up under-delivering.
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Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose.
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I am so grateful that you re here right now.
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It truly means the world to me that you tune in every day, some of you multiple times per day or multiple times per week.
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And it s been an incredible, incredible journey over the last four and a half years of serving you through this podcast.
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I feel like the community we ve developed, the relationship we ve developed, the depth that we ve created,
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has been absolutely phenomenal.
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And today s episode is very, very special for me because this is my birthday episode, which means I wanna share with you the lessons I ve learned, the mistakes I ve made, the challenges I ve faced, what has been happening in my life over the last 12 months, because I feel like you know me and I know you and we ve built this incredible relationship.
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over the last few years, whether you started listening one episode ago or whether you started listening 300 episodes ago, I feel connected to you and I know you feel connected too.
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So I want to kind of talk through some personal things and at the same time I want to share with you the learnings, the messages, the wisdom that I ve gained through those experiences in my life.
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My birthday was on the 6th of September, a couple of days ago, and I woke up in the morning and I wrote this caption for what I was sharing on Instagram that day, and it s inspired an entire episode to share with you some of my top learnings.
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And for me, my birthday has always been a day of reflection, a day of celebration, a day of reconnecting to my purpose, reconnecting to my essence.
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And I m really excited that I get to share that with you in a deeper, more thoughtful way.
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So I want to dive straight in because I ve got 12 reminders, 12 lessons I ve learned in the last 12 months.
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So let s start with number one.
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And by the way, these are personal and professional.
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So lesson number one is be really conscious about who you keep and let go from your life.
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Just because you have history doesn t mean you have to force a future.
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A lot of people have been asking me, Jay, it just seems like you ve been able to do so much recently.
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I was able to launch my second book.
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I was able to go on tour.
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The podcast hasn t missed.
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It s been incredible to make some really cool content for our social channels.
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I ve been able to get involved in lots of meaningful impact work behind the scenes.
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And a lot of people say to me, Jay, it seems like you ve been doing so much.
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And the truth is, I can only do that because of the incredible team I have around me.
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I m surrounded today by an amazing group of people that
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work with me because they believe in the purpose, they believe in what we re trying to do, they see the impact, they are so proud of doing good work by themselves.
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I have a number of people on my team that are just leaders and previously they never got given the opportunity, they didn t get given the break, they didn t get given the responsibility for whatever reason.
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And so anything I m able to do today is truly to give credit to them.
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Now,
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Notice how I said be really conscious about who you keep and let go from your life.
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And the reason I use the word conscious is because when you re present, when you re aware, you can energetically in the moment tell whether you connect with someone or whether you don t.
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How many times have you met someone and thought to yourself,
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This is someone I m going to be friends with for a long time. 
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Or, how many times have you met someone and thought to yourself, yeah, me and this person don t align.
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No judgment, no criticism, but we just don t see eye to eye.
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And I started to realize that, especially in the workplace, I wanted to work with people that I d be happy going out to lunch and dinner with.
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I wanted to work with people and bring people onto my team that I d want to invest in and coach and guide and mentor.
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I wanted to have people on my team that I thought could challenge me.
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For a long time I was just looking at people s backgrounds and work experience and things like that and I started to realize I was actually neglecting my energy check.
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I was denying my ability to
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use my intuition and see the frequency of someone and see whether we align on that level.
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And you see that happen on the podcast all the time.
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I m sure you see me with guests where you can see where we re on the same vibration, same wavelength.
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And it s interesting how we all have that ability, we all have that skill, but we often kind of put it aside or we try to shun it.
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We go, oh, no, no, let me look at the facts, let me look at the data.
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And
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I almost wanted to give you a reminder that I want you to trust your intuition.
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I want you to trust your gut.
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I want you to think energetically about the people that make you feel good, that lift you up, that make you feel like they bring out the best in you.
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Right?
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Does someone bring out the best in you?
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Does someone make you feel like the best version of yourself?
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How can you connect with them more closely and more deeply?
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And I added a part to this lesson as well.
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The idea that just because you have history with someone doesn t mean you have to force a future because it s really interesting how nostalgia and how attachments hold this deep space in our life.
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We feel we have to stay connected to people because we were once connected to them.
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We feel we have to force ourselves to have a relationship with someone because we had a relationship in the past.
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And what I ve learned is that you can honor a relationship.
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Like, I ve got lots of friends.
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that we were really, really close back in the day.
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And if I m completely honest, if I see them now, we can slot straight back into that energy that we had then, and I love doing that with them.
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But I m not trying to force and create and build a new part to that relationship anymore if that s not natural, if that s not organic.
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And we ve all heard the old phrase that you become the five people you re surrounded by, you become the average of the five people around you.
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It s lasted the test of time, that advice, because it s so true.
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And I want you to be conscious about where you want to go.
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I want you to be conscious about who you want to be.
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And if you can answer those questions, who do I want to be?
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Who am I becoming?
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And where do I want to go?
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That s the people you want to surround yourself by.
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How can you find those new communities and new people around you?
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Now, number two.
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Take care of your body and mind like your life depends on it, because it does.
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In order to serve and give more, I often push myself beyond my limits and therefore I also need to give them the attention they deserve.
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Now I ve done this time and time again.
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I love what I do.
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I believe in what I do.
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But I
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give more than what I have.
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How many of you have ever done that before?
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Well, you re just trying to give and give and give and you re trying to give way beyond what you actually have.
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How s that possible?
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Imagine you have a glass of water, and someone says they re thirsty, and you give them the whole glass, and then you re trying to give them more from that glass, but there s no more left.
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You end up feeling guilty, and the other person is looking at you like, what are you trying to do?
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It doesn t make sense, but we do it emotionally.
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Emotionally, we try to over-give, over-share, over-provide, over-promise.
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Naturally we end up under-delivering, we end up feeling undervalued.
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What I realized a while ago
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was I could only truly extend myself and give myself to others if I was truly taking care of myself.
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Had I slept well?
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Had I eaten well?
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Had I worked out?
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Had I meditated?
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Because not only would I be able to give more, the quality of what I was able to give was elevated as well.
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If I d meditated, I was more clear.
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If I d worked out, I felt more strength.
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If I d eaten well, then I felt like I had better decision-making capabilities.
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How many of us are trying to extend ourselves to others, but we re just giving them our leftovers?
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How many of us are trying to be there for other people, but we re not even there for ourselves in the first place?
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I really, really want you to remember this.
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It sounds so basic and it s so simple, but I know that there are so many of you that want to do good in the world, that you want to do something for others.
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And what I ve realized time and time again is that it is so, so important and necessary for us to remember that helping yourself is a part of helping others.
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We often see helping ourselves and helping others as complete opposites.
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We see them as two things that don t connect.
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But actually loving yourself in order to love others makes it connected.
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Taking care of yourself in order to care for others makes it connected.
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We have to start looking at our life as interconnected and symbiotic as opposed to disconnected.
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Now how do we do this?
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When you look at meditation, exercise, diet, and sleep, those are the four things I think about.
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I call it MEDS, M-E-D-S, meditation, exercise, diet, and sleep.
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You can t solve all four at the same time.
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And I often think that doing them in a certain order can help you.
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So I always say to people, start with your sleep.
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If you can start with your sleep pattern, a lot of other things are going to take care of themselves.
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For example, if you sleep well, you re likely to eat better because now you re not turning to sugars and carbs, or at least the bad ones, for energy because you ve slept well.
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So now you re not filling up that energy gap.
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If you are sleeping well, also your energy increases to want to exercise, to want to work out.
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And you re sleeping better because when you exercise, you re using up that energy throughout the day.
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And of course meditation, allowing you to have stillness.
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And so I want you to think about how you can start with just one of them.
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If you ve already nailed sleep, go to diet.
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If you ve done diet, go to exercise.
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If you ve done exercise, go to meditation.
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Move through your meds very effectively.
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And this second lesson was most important for me this year with the tour.
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I was so enjoying my time on tour, and at the same time, it was one of the most exhausting things I ve ever done.
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I was in each city for like one and a half days, if that, and most of that would be coming in, checking in, sleeping in a hotel, eating something, going on a walk, getting on stage, getting back off, flying on a plane again.
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It was so exhausting that
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my meds took care of me and I ve realized that your capacity in life increases or decreases based on meditation, exercise, diet and sleep.
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And so in my own life this year I learned even more so how important it was to take care of my body and mind and what they were capable of and what was possible when I did that.
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So number three, this one s a big one for me and I want to be open and vulnerable with you.
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It s okay to ask for help or a hug.
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You re human after all, and so am I. If you re trying to be there for others, it s easy to forget you also need to be held and embraced emotionally.
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Often I forget this.
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Don t ignore that need.
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I can t tell you the amount of times I ve tried to be strong for others.
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I ve held back my own emotions, my tears, my vulnerabilities, my weaknesses.
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because I didn t think it was okay to ask for help or a hug.
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And recently in the past year, I have been so proud of myself for reaching out to people and just saying, hey, I d love to chat.
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Hey, I d love to talk.
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Let me just open up about this for a second.
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I m so grateful that I have so many incredible friends in my life, men and women, who are consistently there for me, always to help with a hug, with support, whatever it may be.
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I think what s really interesting is why do we struggle to ask for help?
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One of the first reasons is because we re scared that no one will care.
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We actually have this inbuilt fear inside of us that no one s coming, that no one s coming to help us, that no one s coming to care.
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And because of that fear, we don t ever ask.
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And what I ve found is that
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The more I develop and deepen my relationships, the more I m able to actually have confidence that when I open my heart to someone, they ll want to help me.
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Another reason why we struggle to tell people is we think it will make us look weak.
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So now we re worried about how we ll be perceived or how we ll appear to the other person.
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If we express this vulnerability, if we express this need, does it make us look like weaker?
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Does it make us look less skilled and less able?
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What does it do?
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And it s really interesting because I realized in my line of work, people always think, oh, Jay has to have it all together.
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He has to have it all going.
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I don t, and I don t think anyone does.
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And I think that opening up and sharing that with my friends more openly has allowed me to have them feel like they can reach out.
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Because in the past, people would only reach out for advice.
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But then now you have friends reaching out going, hey, you OK?
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How are you feeling about this?
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And I love that.
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I love that.
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It makes me feel great when people do that.
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And so I ve had friends reach out to me and say, Jay, hey, I just want to check in and see how you re feeling.
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You know, I wanted to make sure you re doing all right and people check in on you when you allow them to check in on you.
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So often we push people away from checking in with us if we always portray our life as perfect or if the perception of us is that life is great.
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And so we have to help break down that wall for people so that people can actually reach out to us because otherwise we just sit there going, well no one reaches out to me, no one cares about how I feel.
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No one really knows.
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Another reason why we don t give ourselves permission to ask for a hug or ask for help is because sometimes we re scared of whether we deserve it.
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I ve known people in my life who ve had incredible people in their life
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be open with them to want to help them and support them, and these people haven t taken it up because they feel like they don t deserve it.
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Sometimes maybe we feel we won t fulfill the advice, we won t follow through with it, so we feel unqualified.
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And I think what s important to know in that case is just tell the other person.
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I often say to someone, hey, I m not sure I have the energy right now to follow through with your advice, but I would love to get your perspective.
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I m not sure I m emotionally mature enough to dissect and digest this right now, but I d love to give it a shot.
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Can you share this with me?
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If we were able to tell people what we were really going through and how we felt, it would be fascinating to see how much more
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we d be able to learn about ourselves and they d be able to learn about us.
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I don t feel scared anymore to actually open my mind and say, this is what I m grappling with.
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This is the dichotomy I m struggling with.
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This is the challenge that exists for me.
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When the Taliban banned music in Afghanistan, millions were plunged into silence.
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Radios were smashed, cassettes burned.
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You could be beaten or jailed or killed for breaking the rules.
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And yet, Afghans did it anyway.
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This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.
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The danger they endured.
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They said my head should be cut off.
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The joy they brought to the nation.
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You re free completely.
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No one is there to destroy you.
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I m John Legend.
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Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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A new season of Bridgerton is here.
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And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
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I m your host, Gabrielle Collins.
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And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
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Colin Bridgerton has returned from his travels abroad.
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Is Betrothal written in the stars for the eligible bachelor?
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Meanwhile, the ton is reverberating with speculation of who holds Lady Whistledown s pen.
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We re discussing it all.
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I sit down with Nicola Coughlin, Luke Newton, Shonda Rhimes, and more to offer an exclusive peek behind the scenes of each episode of the new season.
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Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
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Then, fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
2
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Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
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Guess what, Mango?
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What s that, Will?
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So iHeart is giving us a whole minute to promote our podcast, Part-Time Genius.
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I know.
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That s why I spent my whole week composing a haiku for the occasion.
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It s about my emotional journey in podcasting over the last seven years, and it s called Earthquake House.
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Mango, I m going to cut you off right there.
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Why don t we just tell people about our show instead?
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Yeah, that s a better idea.
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So every week on Part-Time Genius, we feed our curiosity by answering the world s most important questions.
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Things like, when did America start dialing 911?
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Is William Shatner s best acting work in Esperanto?
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Also, what happened to Esperanto?
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Plus, we cover questions like how Chinese is your Chinese food?
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How do dollar stores stay in business?
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And of course, is there an Illuminati of cheese?
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There absolutely is.
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And we are risking our lives by talking about it.
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But if you love mind-blowing facts, incredible history and really bad jokes, make your brains happy and tune in to Part-Time Genius.
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Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Lesson number four, don t buy into your own hype.
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Stay connected to why you started and remain a humble student of life.
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If you forget this, life will remind you.
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I love this one because I genuinely believe that it s so easy to get caught up in your own hype and forget why you started and forget why you began and forget the feeling you got when you started doing whatever it is that you do.
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And for me, I really, on tour this year, tried to take in the love
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that I received from all of you when I met you at a meet and greet or I met you walking off stage or when I met you walking into my car after the show or whatever it was and so many of you shared so many beautiful messages of love with me.
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I really try to take in the love and I think before I used to think that if I took in the love I d be buying into my own hype and I realized these are two very different things.
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So buying into your own hype means
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you re like getting egotistic and arrogant about what s going on.
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And receiving love is actually so beautiful because it doesn t go to the head, it goes to the heart.
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And so to me, if someone says something and I can help it go to the heart, it actually is really nourishing and nurturing.
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And this is one of the reasons why we struggle to say nice things about ourselves.
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This is one of the reasons we struggle to receive compliments is because we think they re going to go to our ego.
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And it s really interesting because what I try and do, and this is how the filtration process or the extraction process works.
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So if someone compliments me, let s say someone says, Jay, you gave such a great presentation, right?
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And I m doing this and it s uncomfortable for me to even say this about myself.
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But let s say someone said that to me.
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The first thing I do is I extract gratitude and I pass that gratitude on to my teacher or my teachers or my mentors who gave me that skill.
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So whatever skill someone notices in me, I think of the person who helped me develop that skill, directly or indirectly, and I give it to them in my mind.
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And then I express gratitude to the person who gave that to me because they ve just reminded me of my teacher, they ve reminded me of beautiful memories of learning, they ve reminded me of the growth that I ve made, the progress I ve made, and so I m grateful to them as well.
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So you ve just turned something that could turn into ego into gratitude.
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And that s how you don t buy into your own hype.
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And what I ve understood about life so far is that if you do buy into your own hype, life comes back around, it humbles you, it brings you back down to ground, and it will keep doing that because it s how it s designed.
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We re designed to see the humanity in ourselves and see the humanity in others and value ourselves based on that humanity, not value ourselves based on anything else.
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And I think it s truly special and beautiful when we can actually do that.
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Number five, people will always try to tear you down no matter your intention.
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Trust that the people that know you love you and invest deeply in those relationships to protect yourself.
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I ve realized this the hard way that no matter how good your intention is, no matter how much you care, no matter what you re trying to do in the world, there will always be people who try and tear you down.
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There ll always be people who criticize you, who
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mock you, who ridicule you, who point fingers at you.
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And I take as much of it I can as feedback.
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I always look at any criticism as how can I learn from that?
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How can I grow from that?
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And at the same time, I have to realize that the people who know me deeply, the people who know me truly, the people who know me honestly,
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I have to check in with them.
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And I do that.
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When I listen to some feedback about myself or some criticism, and I m starting to internalize it and take it personally, and trust me, I do that, I ll often go to a close friend and I ll say, hey, do you feel this way?
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Do you think this is true?
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And I ll have friends who are really honest with me.
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And so they ll say, look, I don t think this part s true.
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I think this is something you could work on.
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I think this may have some validity to it, but not in that venom that it was given with.
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And having that conversation is so beautiful.
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Or a friend of mine just says to me, Jay, you know what, actually, I ll be honest with you, you re right.
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And this isn t the truth.
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And I think it s so important to continually deepen our closest relationships.
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And the challenge is if everyone always knows us in a shallow way,
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all the criticism we experience will hit us deep.
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If all of our relationships are shallow, what anyone will say will cut us deep.
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But if we have deep relationships, if we deepen our relationships, we can then make sense of where things really land.
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And so for me, I ve also realized that as your scale grows, the amount of people that like and dislike your work also grows.
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And I think I ve tried my best to separate myself from my work.
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at least theoretically and intellectually, to recognize that someone cannot like my work.
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They may not like what I say, but that doesn t mean they don t like me because they may not know me.
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And that s okay.
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And I m not bitter towards them.
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I m not mad at them.
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I actually share internally a lot of love with them.
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And I practice that.
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If someone has ill will towards me, at least internally, I try and practice love and compassion towards them.
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Number six, I was talking to someone the other day about how I feel that as people grow in scale, the percentages change.
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So when you first start out, 95% of people will like you and 5% of people may not know who you are or not like you.
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And then that keeps changing, right?
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Where you end up to a point where a lot of people in this world, if they re really well-known, 50% of people love them, 50% of people don t care about them.
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And it s a really interesting journey to be on where you start to feel like there s more and more people that understand you deeply, but at the same time, there s more and more people who completely misunderstand you.
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And I think that s the way to explain it.
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It s not about like or hate or love or hate.
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It s about people who understand you and people who don t.
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And I feel like if you ve been here listening to me and you ve been reading what I m writing and you ve read my books and connected with me, you re understanding me really deeply.
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And I really appreciate that space.
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And at the same time, if someone just sees one clip, they may not understand me at all.
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And I have to be okay with that.
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And that s a really hard thing to wrap your head around.
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And that leads nicely onto lesson number six.
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Different levels come with different problems.
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Focusing on developing new skills and strengths because they will lead to peace.
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So what I ve realized is that
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There is no problem-free life.
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There is no amount of money that will solve your problems, all your problems, or amount of fame or amount of success that can solve problems.
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Now that doesn t mean that money can t help with happiness, right?
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I think we always use the term money can t buy happiness, and I don t believe money can buy happiness.
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But I also think money can help with happiness.
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I think success can help with happiness.
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It can be a part of it.
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It can help with sorting out certain problems, right?
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I had different problems in the past.
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I have different problems today.
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And that s why this lesson that I ve learned this year is that different levels come with different problems.
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And a lot of us are trained to pursue or seek a problem-free life.
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We want a life where we don t ever have problems again.
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And by the way, I would love to have one of those too, but it s just not realistic.
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And so I ve realized that rather than focusing on thinking, I hope I never hit a problem again.
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I hope that I never have a challenge again.
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I hope that I never have a difficulty again.
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I ve realized actually, if I focus on developing strengths and skills, if I focus on developing
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new ideologies, new methods, new approaches, that s actually what shifts my mindset effectively.
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That s actually what shifts my energy as well.
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So, people often ask me, Jay, what should I read?
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Like, what book do you recommend?
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And I always say, well, what are you struggling with?
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And I would ask yourself that question today.
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What is it that you re currently struggling with?
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What are you stuck on?
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What is difficult?
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What is uncomfortable?
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And all I want you to do is I want you to find a book
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I want you to find a TED Talk, I want you to find a podcast episode, all on that subject.
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And if you have more time, go and find a course.
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Literally, that s what you need to do.
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Go and find a TED Talk, then go and find a book, go and find a podcast.
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And if you can, go and find a course on that subject matter.
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And I promise you that if you immerse yourself in learning,
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you will overcome that problem.
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Now, when you overcome that problem, you ll unlock a different problem.
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It s literally like a video game.
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You unlock one level and guess what?
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You have another bad person at the end of it that you got to deal with.
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You get over that problem, now you unlock another level, now there s another challenge, right?
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Every level unlocks a challenge.
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And when you finish a level of a video game, you get really excited, and then you go, oh gosh, now I ve got to beat this bad guy, right?
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And it gets harder again, and then you celebrate again, and then it gets harder again.
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So life s kind of like that, where different levels come with different problems.
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And so don t expect a life without problems when you get promoted, when you get that moment in your career when
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you have the perfect family, whatever it may be, there will be another problem.
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But instead of being defeatist about it, what you want to do is be skills-oriented about it, be strength-focused about it.
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Lesson number seven.
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As you get older, don t forget to do things for your younger self.
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There have been times in the past we neglected ourselves because we weren t emotionally intelligent enough.
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We may think our needs have changed, but some remain the same.
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Don t negate them because they feel insignificant to the older you.
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They remain important to the younger you.
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Now, I m going to give you a personal example.
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This year, I got to take my best friend to Old Trafford, which is the stadium of Manchester United, which is my football team or soccer team that I ve followed since I was a kid.
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And I got to take a bunch of my friends.
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We had the honor of meeting Sir Alex Ferguson, who s the legendary manager of the club.
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I got to meet the current manager.
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I got to meet some former players, legends, icons.
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My today self that is trying to be more evolved, more spiritual, more about personal growth may not have appreciated that.
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But my younger self was like, you just got invited to your childhood club that you love to go and watch the team that you love.
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playing the sport that you love, which is my first love, and my younger self was so proud of me, was so excited, was so over the moon.
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And what I find is that our older self, our more evolved self, often talks down our younger self.
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Maybe there s a thing that you still like from your childhood.
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Maybe you re a sneakerhead, right?
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And your older self s like, come on, grow up.
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You don t need sneakers anymore.
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But your younger self s like, oh, no, but now I actually have the money to go out and grab that thing that I want, right?
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Or maybe there was something else you liked in your younger years and you didn t have the time, you didn t have the money, you didn t have the energy to do it properly.
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Today you have a bit more of those things than you can, but you kind of look down on it because you think, oh, that s irresponsible, I should do something better with my life.
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And I think it s so important to honor those younger interests, those younger things, those things that we didn t get to fully enjoy when we were young because we didn t allow ourselves, our parents didn t allow us, whatever it may have been.
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And now that we have the opportunity, you can t just deny that.
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You can t just negate that.
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I feel that that kind of denial often leads to a sense of bitterness, it leads to a sense of disconnectedness, and it leads to that inner child always feeling starved, always feeling like it didn t get the love, the care, the support, the
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thing that it needed.
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Again, I m not saying go crazy and live out every one of your childhood dreams, but I m saying that some of them need to be pursued.
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Maybe you really loved art growing up, and you never took that art class, and you re going to invest in that now.
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Maybe when you were growing up, you really wanted to play an instrument, and your parents couldn t afford to buy you it, and so you re going to go and get your classes right now.
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What is that thing that honors your younger self that you never got to honor at that time?
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Because I promise you that you don t want to make something feel insignificant just because it feels insignificant now.
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If there s still a part of you, that inner child is still there that wants that experience.
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Don t deny your younger self of an experience just because your older self thinks it s insignificant.
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That s one of my favorite ones, one of my biggest ones.
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I feel like my life right now is fully living in both.
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I m living in my evolved self and I m also living in my childhood self.
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There are so many things I do just because I m like, teenage me would think I m the coolest if I did this.
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Even if it s paradoxical to who I am now and I allow myself to live that way because I don t want to deny my younger self.
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of dreams, aspirations and gifts.
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All right, number eight.
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Give yourself permission to be all of you.
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The more we try to extract parts of ourselves in the hopes of becoming perfect, the more we lose a valuable expression of ourselves.
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Let opposites coexist.
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Be a paradox.
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I think you ve heard me talk about this one enough.
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I think I live a paradox.
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I breathe a paradox every day in the life that I lead, the life I ve chosen to lead.
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And I ve just realized that being all of myself and giving myself permission to be all of myself
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is far more fulfilling than, again, denying or neglecting parts of myself.
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Number 10.
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This one is huge.
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I really, really hope this one resonates with so many of you because I really believe so many of you have so much to offer the world.
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So listen to this one carefully.
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You don t have to be perfect to help others.
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I m definitely not perfect.
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Actually, I m far from it.
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I don t have the answer for everything or know everything about anything.
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All I know is that you and I have the ability to do things we haven t even imagined yet, that we can get unstuck, move forward, and change our lives.
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I think so many of us are holding ourselves back because we re not perfect.
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We re not masters.
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We don t think we know everything.
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And the truth is, the more you master something, the more you become humble about it.
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You don t master something and then think, oh, I know everything about everything.
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You master something and then you go, oh, wow, there is so much left to learn.
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And that s why I just want to remind you that if you re someone who has something to offer, you can always take people to the level you re at.
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And I promise you there s someone who needs to be at your level.
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When I ve spoken to people who ve been a part of AA, they may have a sponsor who s one year ahead of them, five years ahead of them, 10 years ahead of them.
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All of those people have valuable experiences.
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If you ve got a new startup, someone who s one year ahead of you, three years ahead of you, five years ahead of you can all be helpful at different times.
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Right now, my wife and I are working on Juni, our sparkling adaptogenic tea company, and we re taking so much advice and mentorship from people, some people who just started a couple of years ahead of us and some people who ve been building for two decades.
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And everyone has something to teach us.
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And so often we think to ourselves, well, unless I m done, unless I m the complete finished article, then I have nothing to share.
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You don t have to be perfect to help others.
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I m definitely not, and I haven t got it all figured out, but you can still help people because you have something to share.
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And I think I ve been really embracing that idea because even I sometimes get into imposter syndrome and think, well, what do I have to share or what am I going to do about this?
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And then I realized all I need to do is go and learn more, read more, connect with people more.
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It s why I love doing the podcast.
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I get to learn about so many different topics from so many different people.
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All right, two more I want to share with you.
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Number 11, make new memories instead of living old ones again and again.
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Don t live in nostalgia.
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You have so much more to experience.
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Don t try to recreate moments from the past.
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Instead, be open to new feelings, new emotions, new people, and new places.
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I think so many of us always talk about, oh, the best times were before.
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The best day of my life was 10 years ago.
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The best moment was this.
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It s beautiful to have great memories, but it s even more beautiful to keep making new memories.
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And I think that s what keeps us young, it s what keeps us fresh.
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I think this year, one thing I did with my team
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We went on a team retreat that I loved and made loads of good memories.
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I made so many memories while I was on tour.
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I tried to make a memory in every city.
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So I tried to do something special, personal in every city that would make that city memorable for me.
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And a lot of it included going on walks, going to art galleries, going outdoors, seeing monuments, seeing special historical parts of a city that I will never, ever forget.
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I think that was so important to me because I didn t just want to travel the world and come back not having felt like I was able to make new memories.
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Actually, I came back with so many new memories of cities I d been to.
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You can go to the same place and shift your mindset about it.
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You can go to a place you ve been to again and again and again and have a new experience there.
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And lesson number 12, the last one, is serve, serve, serve.
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Use your gifts and skills in the service of others.
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It will create opportunities you never thought of, give your life more meaning than ever, and help you make memories for a lifetime.
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And for me, I can honestly say that till this day, my only goal has been to serve through everything I do to help make a positive impact in the world.
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And I constantly reconnect with that feeling because
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It s what inspires me more and more and more.
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I keep going because I want to keep serving.
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I want to keep giving.
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I want to keep learning.
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I want to keep growing.
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And I m just grateful that you give me the opportunity to serve you and you serve me as well by being present here.
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So I hope that this episode was useful.
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I hope that you take something away from it.
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Even if there s one lesson that shifts your mindset and how you think, that would be a win for me.
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and I wish you all the best for the year ahead.
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If you re celebrating your birthday this month or while you re listening to this too, a happy birthday to you.
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Thank you for all the love you gave me on my 36th birthday.
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It means the world to me and I can t wait for many many more birthdays and many many more lessons to share with you all over the years.
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So thank you again and make sure you share this with a friend who needs to hear it.
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And make sure you tag me on Instagram, on TikTok, on Twitter, or on X, and let me know what you re taking away and what stuck with you.
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Thank you so much.
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Sending you so much love.
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Thanks for listening to Home Partners.
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This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.
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The joy they brought to the nation.
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You re free completely.
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No one is there to destroy you.
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The danger they endured.
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They said my head should be cut off.
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I m John Legend.
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Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.